The Great American Life and Death of Andy Warhol</head>

The "Plebian Catastrophes"




Warhol; section of Tunafish Disaster 1963
© 13
Produced in the same way and subjected to the same Warholian aesthetic treatment, this particular series of paintings, set alongside his depictions of consumer items can perhaps be viewed as a continuation of a theme, dramatically illustrating a breach of faith in the products of the industrial revolution by featuring consumer products that bring about death in the car-crashes and perhaps more poignantly in the Tuna-fish Disaster paintings which demonstrate the dark side of the Campbell's Soup Cans.

Yet set apart, these paintings on their own tell a story or two. This is death of the little man, the violence of which perhaps allocates him "fifteen minutes of fame"(8.) in the media attention he has received, albeit in such fatal circumstances.
The press photographs that warhol chose to transfer on to canvas all retain the narrative conventions inherent to photo-journalism. The images of suicides, car-crashes, race-riots, a burn-victim's rescue and an atomic bomb explosion all explicitly depict occurances set within the unromanticised context of real-life. The force of the original narrative in these works transgresses the mediations of Warhol's visual style. As his subject escalates in intensity, Warhol's style becomes increasingly transparent.



Coloration


Despite his claims of mechanical passivity, throughout this series he seems to
play with the varying emotive effects of different colours when applied to such images.


Warhol; Five Deaths on Orange, 1962 © 32		 The pastel hues that he applied in paintings such as Green Disaster Ten Times and Five Deaths on Orange have been described as reflecting a certain painterly spontaneity and simple visual pleasure, as aesthetically pleasing, disturbingly ironic in the face of such images. In contrast, the blood-red coloration applied to a version of the atomic bomb paintings dramatically intensifies the violent impact, bringing with it its inherent associations of blood and danger.
The colour blue when applied to Warhol's paintings of the electric chair similarly strengthens the impact of the image.
Warhol; section of Atomic Bomb 1965 ©18



Repetition
The repetition of these images on the canvas has on the whole been critically viewed as having the effect of distancing and cancelling the outrage rather than dramatizing and condemning it. Warhol himself was quoted as saying that "when you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it does'nt really have any effect."
But it appears , on reflection, that whether repetition numbs or increases the impact is entirely dependent on the image itself and the number of times it is repeated. The strength of some of these images and the way Warhol sets the image up gives it each time, some of its primal shock power.

Consider a single image and its innitial impact.


Warhol; Ambulance Disaster 1963 © 29

Then click on the image to consider the effects of repetition.
Does the impact change in relation to the number of times the image has been repeated?


  • Warhol's use of repetition may also be seen to have further implications;



    Warhol; 3 frames of White Burning Car III1963 © 33
    In "White Burning Car III" of 1963, while we are instantly drawn to the main drama, the repetition of the image seems to have an effect of awarding a new status to the incidental details, in this case to the figure of the passer-by in the back-ground. A certain poignancy arises, adding to the narrative impact from his apparent ignorance to the horrific accident that has just occurred, an ignorance that we see again and again and again...




    A consideration of the sociological implications of this is inevitable whether
    this was Warhol's intention or not.


    DEATH of
    GLAMOUR

    Created by Joanne Patterson
    Last Updated: 11 June 1997
    e-mail