ABOVE: details of a photobooth self-portrait of Andy Warhol, part of the contents of “Time Capsule 21,” one of Warhol’s more than 600 such boxes containing ephemera of his life and work. Four such boxes will be opened for the first time as part of Dia:Beacon’s Warhol retrospective, “Dia’s Andy: Through the Lens of Patronage,” which opened yesterday.

To celebrate its second anniversary, Dia:Beacon (aka Escape from New York: The Gallery) opened yesterday its Andy Warhol retrospective, “Dia’s Andy: Through the Lens of Patronage.” Dia amassed a formidable Warhol collection throughout the 70s and later donated most of it to the Warhol Foundation to start the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh in 1994. Now a lot of that stuff has come back to roost for the show, which sounds a little chaotic: the Brillo boxes will be all over the place, there are silkscreens, wallpapers, films, sculptures, and several of Warhol’s Time Capsules, essentially banker’s boxes full of the artist’s detritus, like letters, photos, magazines, comic books, scraps of paper with little notes on them—it’s quite the trove.

Many of the Time Capsules have never been opened, and four will be opened and displayed for the first time as part of this show. Dia has got all kinds of balls up in the air on this exhibit, with several lectures and screenings planned, a catalogue in the style of Warhol’s Interview magazine, and a companion show called “In and Out of Place: Louise Lawler and Andy Warhol,” on photographer Lawler who has shot 25 years worth of photos incorporating Warhol’s work. It all sounds quite exhausting, so perhaps you should instead look at the Warhol Museum’s online gallery of the contents of Time Capsule 21 and have a little lie-down.

LINK: Dia:Beacon > Exhibition of works by Andy Warhol on view at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries