Empty chairs: Andy Warhol’s interest in mass media resurges with new meaning

Venus Over Manhattan has opened an Andy Warhol show, just in time for Frieze. The exhibition of 18 paintings comes from a series from the 1960s entitled ‘Death and Disaster’.
Warhol had a well-known obsession with the media. He collected all kinds of newspapers, magazines and supermarket tabloids. As an artist, the power of ‘mass-circulated media images’ was priceless and therefore he carefully appropriated this into much of his work over the span of his career.
This particular series, produced between 1964 and 1965, was Warhol’s way of exploring ‘growing mass media’s exploitation of tragic imagery in post-war America’. And this, of course, is most relevant today in the way news and current events are covered. The images – some extreme and frightening – are still today infiltrating mass media, taking the form of riots, terrorist attacks, suicides, criminals, car, train and plane accidents and more.
With his 'Little Electric Chairs' Warhol references a news wire service from 13 January 1953 announcing the historic death sentences of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in upstate New York.
In his essay on the series, American poet Gerard Malanga credited Warhol with saying that ‘[a]dding pretty colors to a picture as gruesome as this would change people’s perceptions of acceptance’. And so, some regard this series as among Warhol’s most important contributions to pop art. As the gallery says, ‘it reveals the banality that can attenuate even a topic as tragic as capital punishment’.
Well-known for his obsession with the media, Warhol produced the series between 1964 and 1965 to explore ‘growing mass media’s exploitation of tragic imagery in post-war America’
With ‘Little Electric Chairs’, Warhol references a news wire service from 13 January 1953, announcing the historic death sentences of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Pictured: Big Electric Chair, 1967–68
‘It reveals the banality that can attenuate even a topic as tragic as capital punishment,’ the gallery explains. Pictured: Little Electric Chair, 1964
INFORMATION
’Little Electric Chairs’ is on view until 18 June. For more details, visit Venus Over Manhattan’s website
Photography courtesy VENUS New York and Andy Romer, © 2016 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
ADDRESS
Venus Over Manhattan
980 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10075
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Daniel Scheffler is a storyteller for The New York Times and others. He has a travel podcast with iHeart Media called Everywhere and a Substack newsletter, Withoutmaps, where he shares all his wild ways. He lives in New York with his husband and their pup.
-
Classic New York restaurants for delicious food and inspired design
From Michelin-starred fine dining to reimagined retro diners, these are the most emblematic (and easy-on-the-eye) places to eat in the Big Apple
-
Ten super-cool posters for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics have just been unveiled
The Olympic committees asked ten young artists for their creative take on the 2026 Milano Cortina Games
-
A local architect’s guide to Accra
Alice Asafu-Adjaye, founder of architecture studio Mustard, describes the Ghanaian capital as spicy, colourful and loud. Here’s how to tap into its contagious energy
-
Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the week
It was a jam-packed week for the Wallpaper* staff, entailing furniture, tech and music launches and lots of good food – from afternoon tea to omakase
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been up to this week
This week saw the Wallpaper* team jet-setting to Jordan and New York; those of us left in London had to make do with being transported via the power of music at rooftop bars, live sets and hologram performances
-
Photographer Geordie Wood takes a leap of faith with first film, Divers
Geordie Wood delved into the world of professional diving in Fort Lauderdale for his first film
-
New book celebrates 100 years of New York City landmarks where LGBTQ+ history took place
Marc Zinaman’s ‘Queer Happened Here: 100 Years of NYC’s Landmark LGBTQ+ Places’ is a vital tribute to queer culture
-
A major Takashi Murakami exhibition sees the world in kaleidoscopic colour
The Cleveland Art Museum presents 'Takashi Murakami 'Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow', exploring outrage and escapist fantasy
-
The alternative art fairs championing emerging artists
The lower barrier to entry to these smaller and specialist art fairs make them hubs of grassroots creativity, allowing emerging names to establish a foothold in the industry
-
Ai Weiwei’s new public installation is coming soon to Four Freedoms State Park
‘Camouflage’ by Ai Weiwei will launch the inaugural Art X Freedom project in September 2025, a new programme to investigate social justice and freedom
-
Leonard Baby's paintings reflect on his fundamentalist upbringing, a decade after he left the church
The American artist considers depression and the suppressed queerness of his childhood in a series of intensely personal paintings, on show at Half Gallery, New York