Andy Warhol, Little Electric Chair, 1964, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas.
©2016 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC. AND ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK/COURTESY VENUS NEW YORK
MONDAY, MAY 2
Opening: Andy Warhol at Venus Over Manhattan
Venus Over Manhattan will show “Little Electric Chairs”, a collection of eighteen paintings from Andy Warhol’s “Death and Disaster” series. “Death and Disaster” explored the growing banality with which the public viewed tragedy in postwar America. According to a press release, “the advent of celebrity culture and introduction of the television as a household object in the post-war era changed the way information circulated.”
“Little Electric Chairs” directly references the deaths of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, which happened ten years before Warhol began his “Little Electric Chairs” series in 1963. Using repetition, and adding colors ranging from hot pink to silver, Warhol sought to provide a visual manifestation of the perversity of desensitization.
Venus Over Manhattan, 980 Madison Avenue, Third Floor, 6–8 p.m.