Andy Warhol - New Now New York Tuesday, March 12, 2024 | Phillips

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  • 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.”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.

     

    i Gene Swenson, “Interview with Andy Warhol,” Artnews, 1963.

    • Provenance

      The Estate of Andy Warhol
      The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York
      Haunch of Venison, London
      Christie's, London, October 22, 2003, lot 58
      Christophe Van de Weghe, New York
      Private Collection
      Sotheby’s, New York, May 10, 2012, lot 248
      Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

    • Literature

      Lynne Cook and Karen J. Kelly, Robert Lehman Lectures on Contemporary Art Vol. 2, New York, 2004, p. 68

    • Artist Biography

      Andy Warhol

      American • 1928 - 1987

      Andy Warhol was the leading exponent of the Pop Art movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. Following an early career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol achieved fame with his revolutionary series of silkscreened prints and paintings of familiar objects, such as Campbell's soup tins, and celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe. Obsessed with popular culture, celebrity and advertising, Warhol created his slick, seemingly mass-produced images of everyday subject matter from his famed Factory studio in New York City. His use of mechanical methods of reproduction, notably the commercial technique of silk screening, wholly revolutionized art-making.

      Working as an artist, but also director and producer, Warhol produced a number of avant-garde films in addition to managing the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founding Interview magazine. A central figure in the New York art scene until his untimely death in 1987, Warhol was notably also a mentor to such artists as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

       

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31

Heaven and Hell Are Just One Breath Away (Positive)

stamped by the Estate of Andy Warhol and twice by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York, and numbered "VF PA10.256" on the overlap
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas
20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Executed circa 1985-1986.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000 

Sold for $222,250

Contact Specialist

Avery Semjen
Associate Specialist, Head of New Now Sale
T +1 212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com
 

New Now

New York Auction 12 March 2024