Billy Name

Born William Linich, Jr.
February 22, 1940
Poughkeepsie, New York, U.S.

Died July 18, 2016 (aged 76)

NationalityAmericanKnown forphotographer, filmmaker, lighting designer, archivist

William Linich, Jr. (February 22, 1940 – July 18, 2016), known professionally asBilly Name, was an American photographer, filmmaker, and lighting designer. He was the archivist of the Warhol Factory, from 1964 to 1970. His brief romance and subsequent friendship with Andy Warhol led to substantial collaboration on Warhol's work, including his films, paintings, and sculptures. Linich became Billy Name among the coterie known as the Warhol Superstars. He was responsible for "silverizing" Warhol's New York studio, the Factory, where he lived until 1970. His photographs of the scene at the Warhol Factory and of Warhol himself are important documents of the Pop art era.

In 2001, the United States Postal Service used one of Billy Name's portraits of Warhol when it issued a commemorative stamp of the artist. Name also collaborated with Shepard Fairey with his photograph of Nico, singer with theVelvet Underground and part of the social circle of Warhol's Factory. He photographed the covers for the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heatand their eponymous third album as well as the photographs in the gatefold sleeve for The Velvet Underground and Nico (in collaboration with fellow Warhol associate Nat Finkelstein).

Career in theater

Prior to his association with Warhol, Name had worked in theatrical lighting design. Name began his career as a lighting designer in the theater in 1960, while working as a waiter at Serendipity 3. His first apprenticeship was with Nick Cernovich, who had won an Obie Award for best lighting. "It was the end of the period of the romantic avant-garde bohemia, when artists kept younger artists and a male artist would always have a young man around." Under the tutelage of Cernovich, he co-designed the lighting for the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds in 1960. Name later designed lighting at Judson Memorial Church, New York Poets Theater and the Living Theater, illuminating the likes of dancers Lucinda Childs, Yvonne Rainer, Merce Cunningham and Fred Herko.

Name significantly influenced Warhol's work. As Warhol would later explain: "[He] had a manner that inspired confidence. He gave the impression of being generally creative, he dabbled in lights and papers and artists materials...I picked up a lot from Billy." (Warhol & Hackett,The Warhol Diaries)

Name also played music in the group Theatre of Eternal Music under the direction of La Monte Young.

Collaboration with Andy Warhol

Name was responsible for taking still photographs at the Factory. Indeed, Name lived and worked at the Factory, having taken up residence in a closet at the back of the studio, at 231 East 47th Street. With the gift of Warhol's 35 mm single-lens reflex Honeywell Pentax camera, along with its operating manual, Name taught himself the technical aspects of photography. He converted one of the Factory bathrooms into a darkroom, where he mastered methods of processing and developing film. These newly acquired skills, combined with his background in lighting and experimental approach to his work, resulted in a body of work which captured the "silver years" at the Factory (1963–70).

Name's close friendship with Warhol - and his role in creating Warhol's artistic environment - provided him with a unique perspective of the Factory, with a particular focus on a core group of "superstars", who largely improvised before the camera. Name's understanding of theater and lighting was an important influence on the look and ambience of the Factory and of Warhol's early films.

Quotations of Name

• "I have a huge appetite for learning everything about the whole field of Zen and astrology and yoga."
• "It was the Cardboard Andy, not the Andy I could love and play with. He was so sensitized you couldn't put your hand on him without him jumping. I couldn't even love him anymore, because it hurt him to touch him." Name on the change in Warhol after he was shot by Valerie Solanas; Name held a bleeding Warhol in his arms while waiting for the ambulance to arrive.[9]
• "If Beethoven would have written a second opera, he probably would have called it 'Romantika.'" 2002, referring to Blake Nelson Boyd's visual opera "Romantika." shown at galleries and museums.

Quotations about Name

• "Billy Name exquisitely transforms sexploitation into glamour, and the 'nudie' into a work of beauty." Debra Miller, on Billy Name's stills from the 1967 Warhol film The Nude Restaurant.
• "B. Linich is like a dog, a poodle--one does not have to have the same responsibilities towards him as towards other people--he is loved for the reasons a poodle is loved." Soren Angenoux
• "Billy Linich arrived [at Diane di Prima's California home] the earliest and stayed the longest. Billy was at that time doing a bit of everything: writing, collaging, taking odd combinations of drugs, making mots that sounded way hipper than they probably were, and mostly looking wise with a little half-smile and crinkly eyes." Diane di Prima

Billy Name is the "Billy" in the Velvet Underground's song "The Story Of My Life," written by Lou Reed (1969).

He is mentioned in Lloyd Cole's song "Cut Me Down", "I've been Billy Name and filled my pockets with sand" "Andy - I am not here anymore but I am fine. Love, Billy"

He is also mentioned by name in two songs to or about Andy Warhol, "Hello It's Me" and "Slip Away (A Warning)" from Songs for Drella, the album on which Reed and John Cale collaborated.

Later life

Name resided in his native Poughkeepsie, New York until his death in 2016.

Bibliography

• All Tomorrow's Parties: Billy Name's Photographs of Andy Warhol's Factory, by Billy Name, Dave Hickey, and Collier Schorr; ISBN 1-881616-84-3 Distributed Art Publishers (DAP) (August 1997)
• Billy Name: Stills from the Warhol Films by Debra Miller; ISBN 3-7913-1367-3 Prestel Pub (March 1994)
• Scherman, Tony & Dalton, David, POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol, HarperCollins, New York, N.Y. 2009
• Steven Watson, Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties (2003) Pantheon, New York

Collective exhibition

• 2010: Les Rencontres d'Arles festival, France.