Produced just one year prior to his death in 1987, Warhol’s eerily titled Heaven and Hell Are Just One Breath Away (Positive) is a hauntingly compelling work on canvas which speaks to the moment in the artist’s career in which it was made.
Composed in stark black and white and exemplifying the artist’s stylistic tendency of dramatic contrast, Heaven and Hell Are Just One Breath Away (Positive) was created as a two-part work – with a negative counterpart, in which white letters stand illuminated against a black background. This white version appears less visually ominous – although textually just as uncanny.
Perhaps most uncanny is Warhol’s choice of font; with jaunty block letters and an exclamation point, the rendering is reminiscent of a supermarket special offering a limited-time offer, appearing in stark contrast with the cryptic message displayed. At the same time, however, the simplicity and hand-drawn nature of Heaven and Hell seems to recall 1960’s protest signs. Thus, Warhol collapses commercialism, consumerism, mortality and politics in one to create a work which mirrors American society as a whole in the mid-1980s.
“I realized that everything I was doing must have been Death.”
—Andy Warhol
Heaven and Hell is not the first time the artist experimented with macabre themes. Warhol began his Death and Disaster series in 1962 and became more interested in tragic events in his later Race Riot and Ambulance Disaster series. When asked for the reason behind making these series, which appalled the art world, Warhol stated that “When you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it doesn’t really have an effect.”i In this manner, Warhol’s works from this time onwards can be seen as a commentary on the American public’s desensitization to violence.
Perhaps most tangible in this work are the echoes of Warhol’s own fear of death, and near-death experiences. On June 3rd, 1968, Valerie Solanas, a former employee of Warhol's, went to his studio the 'Factory' and shot him. Although the artist survived, the psychological trauma left lasting repercussions, causing Warhol to become a recluse; he spent much of the rest of his life in fear of a second attack. The emotional and psychological scars left by this attempted assassination seemed to hover over the last series of works in the artist’s career.
As a Catholic, Warhol’s Heaven and Hell could also be seen to have religious connotations – perhaps influenced by the artist’s visit to Rome in April of 1980, and his subsequent receival of a blessing from the Pope. Warhol’s unexpected illness and death in February of 1987 would come as a blow to the art world. Yet, Heaven and Hell could perhaps be seen as a last message from the artist; combining ‘word art’, faith, artistry, and pop art all in one, this work is a testament to Warhol’s ability to coalesce genres, and his prescient realization of the fragility of life.