PASADENA, Calif. -- Famous artist. Image-conscious celebrity. Church-going mama's boy .... Filmmaker Ric Burns ("New York: A Documentary Film") said all these attributes, in varying degrees, applied to Pittsburgh native Andy Warhol and made him an ideal subject for an upcoming "American Masters" biography.

	Kfirziv.com Ric Burns wrote, produced and directed "Andy Warhol," a two-part PBS "American Masters" special about the iconic artist from Pittsburgh. Click photo for larger image. Related article Rob Owen's Tuned In Journal

"I can think of no artist who is more successful at presenting and perpetuating an image of himself than Andy Warhol," Burns said Wednesday. "In addition to creating paintings and films and working in a number of media, he also created an image of himself. That image was possibly his greatest work of art."

Burns' "Andy Warhol," a two-part four-hour film, airs under the "American Masters" banner at 9 p.m. Sept. 20 and 21 on PBS.

"There is no story more important to tell about this huge cultural transformation of the 1960s in all its complexity than the story of Andy Warhol," Burns said. "That's why we really wanted to take it on."

Burns wrote, produced and directed the film, which makes extensive use of the archives at Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum and includes interviews with art critic Dave Hickey, author Stephen Koch, writer George Plimpton and Warhol's brother, John Warhola. Musician Laurie Anderson narrates the documentary and artist Jeff Koons appears as the voice of Warhol.

"Andy Warhol was, in terms of the simple graphic talent, his ability to draw, perhaps the most successful American artist of his generation," Koch said. "There's another little secret about him: He was also probably the best-read, intellectually best-informed artist of his generation, something he kept very secret because it wasn't part of the image that he was a reader."

Burns said the image Warhol cultivated, which the artist referred to as "putting on his Andy," was important to him and an important part of his legacy.

"He was going bald from the time he was 19 years old. He had the blotches [on his skin]. He carefully made himself up for the world starting really around 1962, just as American mass culture, a culture obsessed with celebrity, began to come online," Burns said. "He understood the power of image, arguably as no human being in the 20th century did, and he cultivated that image in himself."

Burns said the film will look at the private sides of Warhol's life, including his devotion to church and his mother, Julia, and his homosexuality, but the documentary will spend more time exploring Warhol as cultural archaeologist, "Andy, the transformer of himself, the transformer of his culture, the transformer of art in the 1960s."

Channel surfing

Last summer Fox announced a new reality show, "XQUEST," that would send teams of contestants on a simulated space flight, but it never got off the launch pad and is no longer in development. Fox Entertainment president Peter Liguori said the network's ambition was beyond the grasp of current simulator technology. ... All 53 episodes of Fox's "Arrested Development" will air in syndication on cable's G4 in October and in high-definition on HDNet in September and will be available for download online from MSN.com later this year. ... PBS's "Frontline" and "American Masters" will collaborate on a three-hour look at "The Mormons" to air in April 2007. ... PBS will make some of its programs ("NOVA," "Now," "Antiques Roadshow") available for downloadable purchase at www.video.google.com/pbs.html.

TV Q&A

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about KDKA news coverage, Sci Fi Channel shows in high definition and the fate of "Windfall." Read it online at www.post-gazette.com/tv.