{"id":9972,"date":"2017-06-08T12:13:27","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T09:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ikastikos-kiklos.com\/andy-warhol-%ce%b7-%ce%ac%cf%83%cf%87%ce%b7%ce%bc%ce%b7-%ce%bf%ce%bc%ce%bf%cf%81%cf%86%ce%b9%ce%ac-%cf%84%ce%bf%cf%85-death-disaster\/"},"modified":"2018-02-19T19:53:49","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T17:53:49","slug":"andy-warhol-%ce%b7-%ce%ac%cf%83%cf%87%ce%b7%ce%bc%ce%b7-%ce%bf%ce%bc%ce%bf%cf%81%cf%86%ce%b9%ce%ac-%cf%84%ce%bf%cf%85-death-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ikastikos-kiklos.com\/en\/andy-warhol-%ce%b7-%ce%ac%cf%83%cf%87%ce%b7%ce%bc%ce%b7-%ce%bf%ce%bc%ce%bf%cf%81%cf%86%ce%b9%ce%ac-%cf%84%ce%bf%cf%85-death-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Warhol or The horrific beauty of \u2018Death & Disaster\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
In 1928, Andrew Warhola is born by Jukie and Andrej Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Andrew Warhola<\/strong>, son of Slovakian immigrants<\/strong> would later be known as Andy Warhol, the renowned artist. Being a sicking boy, he once had to spend two months in bed, during which, he became obsessed with Shirley Temple. He started studying drawing at the Carnegie Institute and soon after his enrollment, he was hired to paint the shopping windows of the \u2018Joseph Horne\u2019s\u2019 department stores. It was with this money that he made his first trip to New York. <\/p>\n In 1940<\/strong>, he designs shoes for \u2018Glamour\u2019 magazine, while working as a shop decorator and book illustrator. During this period, he changes his name into Andy Warhol.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 1950-1960<\/strong>, he organizes a campaign against drugs for the New York Times, while creating his first pop-art paintings, depicting Coca-Cola bottles, dollar bills and Campbell cans. We will be focusing in Warhol\u2019s third creative decade, a period marked by the \u2018Death & Disaster\u2019 series, which is known for its intense, social connotations \u2013 to say the least.<\/p>\n Between August of 1962 and the end of that same year, Andy Warhol produced 2.000 images<\/strong>. One of his quotes could serve as the perfect introduction to our exploration of his \u2018Death & Disaster\u2019 series:<\/p>\n “Some people, even intelligent people, say that violence can be beautiful. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I can\u2019t understand that, because beautiful is some moments, <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n and for me those moments are never violent.<\/strong><\/em>“<\/p>\n In 1962, he presents the \u2018Death & Disaster\u2019 series, along with the Marilyn Monroe portraits. This particular series went through a lot of processing, in order to utter – or not, since we do not know whether Warhol had any such intent – its particular message. Warhol would always remain loyal to a certain creative distance through the use of many of his characteristic techniques. Still, some of those images bare a certain emotional power due to their colors and repetitive patterns – even their \u2018mistakes\u2019, which were the result of his technological mediums.<\/strong> It is only logical that this series, along with his images of daily commodities, would be seen as a comment on the violation of the trust the American people has placed in the products of the Industrial Revolution, denouncing them as causes of death in his \u2018Tuna Fish Disaster\u2019 work, which exposes the dark side of the Campbell Soup cans. And, who knows? Maybe, at a deeper level, these paintings could also relate a story or two.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The pictures he chose, followed the rules of photojournalism. Images of suicides, car\u00a0<\/strong>crashes, race riots, the rescue of a fire victim, or an atomic bomb explosion\u2026 They all\u00a0<\/strong>capture a particular incident in the non-romantic context of real life.<\/strong> On the other hand, the use of different colors creates a variety of feelings. The pastel shades he uses in works like \u2018Green Burning Car II\u2019, or \u2018Five Deaths on Orange\u2019, seem to be focusing on the simple visual pleasures of spontaneous painting, infusing into the work a kind of disturbing irony in juxtaposition with the cruelty of the scenes themselves. On the contrary, the red color he uses in one of his \u2018Section of Atomic Bomb\u2019 versions, intensifies the context in the most dramatic way, red being the color of blood and danger alerts. Likewise, the blue color of his \u2018Death Row\u2019 denotes the deadly silence following the activation of the electric chair.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n His repetitive images on the canvas convey the theme\u2019s crucial character, achieving a sense of inner distancing without resorting to over-dramatizations or open condemnations. As Warhol, himself, once put it: \u201cWhen you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it doesn\u2019t really have any effect.<\/em><\/strong>\u201d Here is an example: in \u2018White Burning Car II\u2019 (1963), repetition directs the viewer\u2019s attention to the details \u2013 the bystanders and the surroundings. It is a sort of sarcasm, adding a kind of ignorance to the scene\u2019s horror, recurring again and again. This leads us to the conclusion that the \u2018Death & Disaster\u2019 series is a comment on our extreme familiarization with violence, which after a certain point makes us indifferent towards it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 1963<\/strong>, Gerard Malanga<\/a> becomes Andy Warhol\u2019s assistant, just when he starts working on his \u2018Electric Chair\u2019 and \u2018Race Riot\u2019. This is how Malanga describes the beginning of his new carrier: \u201c\u2026we began with a silkscreen of Elizabeth Taylor\u2019s portrait on a silver spray background\u2026\u201d The portraits of Monroe, Taylor, Presley and Brando represented the ideal of beauty, success and sex appeal, as promoted in the Hollywood films of the \u201830s and the \u201840s. Those works were a blow to the groin of the American high society. The fact that an artist would chose Marilyn\u2019s picture as his theme, only days after she had overdosed on sleeping pills, while desperately calling for help\u2026 Warhol created an immortal memory. He included his numerous portraits of Marilyn – showing the picture of a young actress – in his death series, along with images of accidents and various disasters. It is a series which contradicts the \u2018American way of life\u2019, exposing its inner relations to death. We must always keep in mind that Warhol himself was fully aware of the fact that everything he did was revolving around death.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the same year, Andy began working on Jackie Kennedy<\/a>\u2019s portrait. John Fitzgerald Kennedy<\/a> was the second-born child of the Kennedy family and was the 35 th President of the United States, until the 22th of November, when he was assassinated. Jackie Kennedy\u2019s picture, showing her crying behind her husband\u2019s coffin, shocked the media even more than the actual assassination.<\/strong> Andy used it in different versions, choosing five different pictures as his theme. Jackie, this young, rich girl of French descent, represented the nation\u2019s hope for a union of politics with culture. The sense of freedom and progress which had swept the country off its feet during the Kennedy Presidency was shredded to pieces by his widow\u2019s image. It became a symbol which altered our idea of our past in the most tragic way.\u00a0<\/strong>Warhol uses Jackie\u2019s images in ways which surpass any common approaches, narrating the tragic tale of a happy and smiling young woman who suddenly turns into a mourning widow. Time seems to be flying over this image \u2013 a technique he has never used before. Warhol applied different photographic shots on the same canvas, systematically undoing the picture itself, or changing it with the use of extensive, monochromatic shadings.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jackie Kennedy\u2019s four-framed portrait, showing her smiling and mourning images side by side, symbolizes the ephemeral nature of happiness itself. Using the natural power of authenticity, the object fades in its blurring outlines and as it fades, it powerfully unveils a world of mourning, hidden behind the mass media\u2019s cover up. Like an expensive car, symbolizing wealth and happiness, which could easily be diminished into nothing more than worthless pieces of metal. Warhol once said that the death series was divided in two parts. The first part was centered on famous\u00a0<\/strong>deaths and the second on people nobody ever heard of. <\/strong>He felt that someone ought to think about them from time to time \u2013 the girl who jumped off the Empire State Building, the ladies who ate the poisoned tuna fish, the people who were killed in car crashes. He didn\u2019t choose them because he felt sorry for them. But he wondered over the fact that people go by, on their way to work, without caring if someone completely unknown has been killed. So he thought it would be nice for those unknown people to be remembered by those who, ordinarily, wouldn\u2019t think of them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just before he died, Andy Warhol started painting cars, connecting them with violence, indifference and the horror of death in the middle of the street. A white car (accident, 19 times), a green car (burned down), an orange car (accident, 10 times), the destruction of an ambulance \u2013 only to mention of few of Andy Warhol\u2019s last creations. His images, which he found in various newspapers, made the viewers\u00a0<\/strong>experience something of the incident\u2019s atrocity. An artist who doesn\u2019t address such\u00a0<\/strong>issues could never be seen as cynical.<\/strong> Paintings like \u2018Death & Disaster\u2019, \u2018Red Car Crash\u2019, \u2018Purple Jumping Man\u2019 and \u2018Orange Disaster\u2019 turn personal tragedies into public spectacles, pointing at the exploitation of such images by the Mass Media. In \u2018Green Car Crash\u2019, for example, the scene Warhol uses for his painting is that of a blurry, suburban road which turns into a surrealistic nightmare. Violence appears raw, and yet covered behind a supernatural veil which brings the viewer in a state of horrified awe, whereas the clarity of the original picture itself doesn\u2019t stir any feelings, anymore.<\/strong><\/p>\n1962-1967<\/strong><\/h2>\n