KJCKorea
Journal Central

Andy Warhol’s last signed works before his death were the photo editions of <Skeletons>sent to 『Parkett』 for publication. And one month after the opening of the blockbuster exhibition 《The Last Supper》 in Milan, silkscreened versions of Leonard’s work, he passed away. His death was sudden and nobody expected it including Warhol himself, but these two incidents remind us that Warhol’s lifelong subject had been death. The critical opinions on Warhol’s late period from the 1970’s to his death can be summarized with the expression ‘post-lapsarian Warhol’ and this period was synonymous with indifference and bad reputation so far. But contrary to the general consensus that Warhol was finished as an artist, he was trying his hand to new abstract paintings and struggled to regain the status of avantgarde artist. Even though he produced lots of works during this period, most of them were not shown in America until his death and thus his final years were considered trivial. After his untimely death, a couple of exhibitions focused on his late works revealed the importance of this period to his whole career as a painter,and the critical attentions have been paid to Warhol’s last years recently. Warhol had a farewell exhibition in 1966 to pursue the filmmaker’s life but resumed painting in 1972. But comeback show with <Mao> partraits,《 Hammer and Sickles》 and 《Andy Warhol’s Portraits of the 70s》 were all badly received, and he was forced to do something new and different. Starting with the <Skull> series, which were the continuation of the ‘death and disaster’ theme in the early 60s, he produced impressive body of works such as <Shadow>, <Oxidation>, <Rorschach>, and <Camouflage>. All these late works are abstract and death-related since they deal with the body’s disappearance and ultimate demise. Warhol’s late works can be summarized with two key words; abstraction and death. He freely expressed his affinity to Abstract Expressionism and was influenced by the abstract qualities of the silkscreen printing process which are quite explicit in the works like <Electric Chair> for example. The first important trial to abstraction was the <Shadows>, in which only the broad brushmarks were the contents. <Oxidation> was made with urinal over the still wet canvas mixed with metal particles, and the <Rorschach> was adopted to test the boundary between the figurative and the abstract, and abstract and decorative. For <Camouflage>, he appropriated the military camouflage patterns and this series was perfect as the posthumous testament and best conclusion to his career.

앤디 워홀(Andy Warhol), 후기작(late work), 죽음(death), 추상화(abstract painting), 해골(Skull), 그림자(Shadow), 산화(Oxidation), 위장(Camouflage), 로르샤하(Rorschach), 충격가발자화상(Shockwig Self-Portrait)