Research - Andy Warhol

Contextual Research

 Skull - Andy Warhol - Tate

‘I don’t believe in it because you’re not around to know that it’s happened. I can’t say anything about it because I’m not prepared for it.’ (Warhol 1977, p.162.) (accessed on Tate website 28/04/21) 
(Cutrone once commented that to paint a skull ‘is to paint the portrait of everybody in the world’, quoted in Foster 2001, p.79.) (accessed on Tate website 28/04/21)
Warhol wrote about death: ‘I don’t believe in it because you’re not around to know that it’s happened. I can’t say anything about it because I’m not prepared for it.’ (Warhol 1977, p.162.) (accessed on Tate website 28/04/21)

(Image Sourced from Google 2021)

Death and Disasters - Andy Warhol - 1962

Death and Disasters by Warhol was a series of appropriated images taken from mas-circulated American media and was inspired by a gruesome photograph of a plane crash in a newspaper in 1962. The series explored dealing with tragic events and fatal accidents using photographs and current events in the media. 

"When you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it really doesn't have any effect" (Warhol, Artnews, 1963)

A specific piece i'd like to talk about is Tunafish Disaster which depicts a tin of tunafish repeated in rows of 3, and the victims of the accident also in rows of three.

 The piece is appropriated from a news story about a contaminated tin of tunafish that had poisoned two women and they had sadly died due to the consumption of the product. 

Each piece in the death and disasters series by Warhol appropriated a news story similar to the 'Tunafish Disaster'. Tragic events repeated for art and media could have left viewers somewhat desensitized to tragic news stories.

(Image sourced from Google 2021)