Gerard Malanga worked closely with Andy Warhol during the artist’s most creative period, from 1963 to 1970. The New York Times referred to him as “Andy Warhol’s most important associate.”

After being introduced by a friend, Warhol hired Gerard because of his previous experiences in silkscreening. Gerard eventually left college, and as he said, started “a summer job that last seven years.”  On his first day of working with Warhol, they created the iconic Elizabeth Taylor paintings.

Malanga was heavily involved in Warhol’s filmmaking. Warhol’s famous three-minute “screen tests” stemmed from Gerard’s idea of creating a publicity photo of himself using movie film. Warhol and Malanga went on to create 500 screen tests of some of the most famous and unknown visitors to The Silver Factory. Malanga was active in many of the early Warhol films, including Chelsea Girls (1966); and co-produced Bufferin (1967) in which he reads his poetry, deemed to be the longest spoken-word movie on record at 33-minutes nonstop.

In 1966, Malanga became a creative collaborator and choreographer with the legendary rock group Velvet Underground, part of Warhol’s multimedia presentation, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

In 1969, Malanga was one of the founding editors of Interview magazine, along with Warhol and John Wilcock.

In December 1970, Malanga left Warhol’s studio to pursue his work in poetry and photography.

A lifelong poet, he’s been publishing his acclaimed poetry for decades. He was already a published poet before he went to work for Andy Warhol in 1963. Gerard writes poetry every day of his life. He’s the author of over a dozen books of poetry spanning a 50-year period, including 2019’s “Cool and other things” (Bottle of Smoke Press). In June 2024, he published his latest book of poetry called “Odie is Being Called Back & Other Poems” (Bottle of Smoke Press). He is the co-author (with Victor Bockris) of Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story. Malanga recently completed his memoirs, In Remembrance of Things Past. His work has appeared in Poetry, Yale Review, Harvard Review, Paris Review, Raritan, Partisan Review and The New Yorker. In 2014, he was named the Official Poet of the annual Glasgow Arts International. In 2024, Gerard was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

THE FLOWERS OF HELL is a Lou Reed-approved London/Toronto experimental ensemble that plays the Velvet Underground. It will accompany Gerard Malanga’s film “Andy Warhol: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (1964).