ELECTRIC CHAIR BY ANDY WARHOL – COMPLETE PORTFOLIO AS PART OF A LARGER BODY OF WORK
Andy Warhol created a portfolio of ten different Electric Chairs in 1971. The idea of taking an object that held so much power, and isolating it, abstracting it and repeating it, is something that Warhol continues to do throughout his career. By doing so, the image is no longer about the electric chair and what it does, it’s about the image itself and the colors found in it.
One of Warhol’s most famous series was his Death and Disaster series where he explored images of plane crashes, suicides and car crashes found in the media. They are his most controversial and thought-provoking works, even today adding another dimension to Warhol’s artwork. Warhol first used the image of the electric chair in 1963, which was the year that New York State had its final to executions at Sing Sing Penitentiary. During that time, there was a lot of political controversy around the death penalty in America, which is why Warhol wanted to explore the idea in his work. Also, Warhol was preoccupied with the numerous news reports about violent deaths and he felt that by taking images from the media and repeating them he would remove their meaning. He once said, “When you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it doesn’t really have any affect.” (Swenson, “What is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part I,” Art News 62 (November 1963): 24-27, p. 60-63) Warhol continues with this idea throughout his career with many different subjects beyond Electric Chair.
Revolver Gallery has a complete portfolio of Warhol’s Electric Chair available for purchase, as well as individual prints from the series.
