Solanas’ shooting instantly turned her SCUM Manifesto into a radical publication

Evidence

Thus, the social violence that characterized the spring of 1968 breached the art world. Ray Johnson saw the next morning’s Daily News headline ACTRESS SHOOTS ANDY WARHOL, was mugged at knife point, and left New York City never to return. Solanas, too, saw the Daily News and fumed that she was a writer, not an actress. More to the point, she was a cultural activist and once her SCUM Manifesto was underlined in blood, she hardly had to wait for admirers. Even before Viva’s Midnight Cowboy scene—a contrived loft party—was filmed, the New York Free Press printed excerpts of the Manifesto. Yippie provocateur Paul Krassner, a friend of Solanas, whom he had invited to lecture at the Free University, provided a postscript for its hastily published first edition. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1153