Andy Warhol was a legendary painter and graphic artist, known for pioneering the genre of pop art. He also produced a significant body boundary-pushing films, including his famous Chelsea Girls. A well-known socialite of the 60's and 70's, Warhol was the resident host at his studio, The Factory, where one could listen to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground and rub elbows with Edie Sedgwick. Warhol died in New York in 1987. 

Hilton Als is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a staff writer at The New Yorker. He has received numerous awards, including the New York Association of Black Journalists' first prize for Magazine/Critique/Review and Magazine Arts and Entertainment, a Guggenheim fellowship for Creative Writing, a George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, and the American Academy's Berlin Prize. He is an Associate Professor at Columbia University's School of the Arts, and his work has appeared in The Nation, The Believer, and New York Review of Books. He lives in New York City.