Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo, born Victor Rojas, (1948–1994) was a Venezuelan-born American artist, window dresser, and partner of the designer Halston. Early life Robb Hernandez wrote in 2019 that Hugo was born at the time of a military coup d'état in Caracas and emigrated with his mother to New York City around 1973. Halston and Andy Warhol Hugo first encountered Halston while working as an escort to make ends meet as a student. Upon their relationship progressing from transactional to romantic, Hugo began doing displays for Halston's Madison Avenue store and later became one of Andy Warhol's assistants at The Factory where among other things he worked on the painter's oxidation paintings. He is said to have been the first window dresser to have incorporated Pop art into his designs. He was also a model for Warhol's "Torso" and "Sex Parts" series. In keeping with his energetic persona, Hugo was quoted in Interview Magazine (April 1975): “Perhaps you would describe me as jaded, darling, but I prefer to say that in living there is absolutely nothing that is bad. I can only say that I live fully 24 hours a day—and I regret nothing". When Studio 54 opened in 1977, Halston and Hugo immersed themselves in a hedonistic and partying lifestyle. Cocaine infused orgies were held at Halston's Upper East Side townhome with Warhol photographing the happenings from the sidelines. In his memoir, Bob Colacello described how Warhol often used Hugo to antagonize Halston: “Andy loved it when Victor showed up at [Studio] 54 in a jockstrap or at a Halston party in a Halston dress, in both cases much to Halston’s embarrassment...Victor later told me that Andy actually paid him to do these things”. He further stated that "Andy saw Victor as the perfect source for ideas: someone with a fertile imagination who didn't know what to do with it...The Venezuelan's own art was going nowhere: He signed rat traps and handed them out at parties; he dipped chickens' feet in red paint and called their footprints drawings". In 1978, the artist and videographer Anton Perich made a short film of Hugo destroying a Warhol painting as "a sacrifice".