Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times

Museum of Modern Art, New York (the USA).

Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on two canvases.

This is a work from the Death and Disaster series in which Warhol used images from daily newspapers. The author applied the photo-silk-screening method to duplicate the plot on the canvas. The repetitions of the image, its fragmentation and distortion are essential to create a strong effect – the artist wanted to shock the viewer. However, the replicated horror scene became a kind of marketing image. There is a specific art comment: the car accident is similar to a photo of a Long Island car accident in which Jackson Pollock died in 1956. Warhol told viewers that Abstract Expressionism, which Pollock supported, was dead. This version was put forward by art critic Christopher Knight.