CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/19/2016

Billy Name, 1940-2016

Billy Name, photographer, filmmaker and Warhol archivist / Superstar has died at the age of 76. "Billy was responsible for the silver at the Factory," Andy Warhol is quoted in Billy Name: The Silver Age, Reel Art Press's monumental 448-page collection of black-and-white photographs from the Factory years. "He covered the crumbling walls and the pipes in different grades of silver foil—regular tinfoil in some areas, and a higher grade of mylar in others. He bought cans of silver paint and sprayed everything with it, right down to the toilet bowl. Why he loved silver so much I don't know. But it was great, it was the perfect time to think silver. Silver was the future, it was spacey. The astronauts wore silver suits—Sheppard, Grissom, and Glenn had already been up in them, and their equipment was silver too. And silver was also the past—the silver screen, Hollywood actresses photographed in silver sets. Maybe more than anything, silver was narcissism—mirrors were backed with silver."