Chris Costello—ART4110

Chris Costello
Dr. Pamela Kachurin, Ph.D.
ART 4110—Modern Art
7/10/01

A Personal Take on Red Disaster
I was drawn to this striking canvas as soon as I walked into the room. Red Disaster is a silkscreen on linen painting produced by Andy Warhol in 1963 and is on permanent display at The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. A vivid and very poignant image of twelve electric chairs suspended in a sea of red pigment, it is a piece that is charged with emotion and connotation. I believe that Red Disaster succeeds in heightening the viewer’s personal awareness of the problems of crime and punishment that the American justice system faces and the controversial solutions that this system proposes.

Visual Analysis
The painting is actually two panels that are flush with each other and form a rather large piece that measures 161 inches wide by 93 inches high. The right panel is exactly the same size as the left but is completely covered with nothing more than a vast field of dense red ink. It is so ominous and alluring that it draws me in, then directs me to the left panel which shows a collection of twelve very cold and abrupt images of a death chamber with one electric chair stationed in the center. Arranged in three columns of four, these graphics appear like 35mm film strips on a contact sheet and remind me of movie frames or newsreel footage. Each lone image is reproduced in black ink with a very high contrast and looks like a poor quality black and white “xerox” copy or newspaper photo with its characteristic smears, fades and streaks. The entire background is a solid and dense coat of deep red, yet, a peculiar small sliver of raw canvas shows in the lower left as the red ink disintegrates into the linen. It seems odd that Warhol rendered to completion such a dense, pure and uniform wash of red throughout the rest of the painting but left this small section to appear rough and unfinished. I will make no attempt to explain why he did this, but I think the fact that he left such a finished looking piece unfinished makes an interesting statement about the capital punishment argument that I will address later.

The overall effect of Warhol’s composition is cyclic. First, the very evocative and sensual color red, excites and attracts me toward the right panel. Black, the absence of color, is symbolic of depth and mystery and the harsh contrasts I see in the death chamber image pull me to the left panel. I curiously explore the crude representation of shadows created by the silkscreen process and try to resolve whether there is any source of light or hope in this scene. As my senses engage the repetition of images, the red field to the right fights for my attention and pulls me back. Yet, the black images continue to tell their story and I am enticed to listen, again, to the left. The conflict ensues back and forth until I am trapped in a swirl of black and red. I find it very hard to leave its powerful and consuming darkness. This painting clearly addresses the issue of capital punishment with all of its arguments and repercussions. It is an issue that is equally as engaging as is the painting.

Interpretation Within Historical and Cultural Context
Red Disaster, although darker in mood than most works in this genre, is quite representative of the Pop Art style that emerged in America during the 1960’s. This was a form of expression that mirrored and entertained the “newly affluent, culture-conscious mass audience” with interpretive images of familiar objects, products and media issues (H&J, p 299). Warhol’s use of bright color and provocative subject matter in Red Disaster is reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstien’s Whaam! (1963) where an enemy fighter jet explodes in bright red and yellow flames after succumbing to the fire of its American opponent. Lichtenstien also exploited the prevailing trends in media content and design with his work and used large graphics and bright washes of solid color for impact. Red Disaster seems to mock the somewhat crude content and graphic art quality of the tabloid newspaper articles of the day. Warhol’s comments on the mass marketing of products and the over saturation of media coverage is also evident in his own Marilyn Monroe Diptych, a silkscreen that portrays the popular film star and sex goddess as a collection of garishly painted and very nonhuman doll heads stacked on a supermarket self. She has become nothing more than another product to be consumed. A diptych is defined by The American Heritage Dictionary as “an ancient writing tablet having two leaves hinged together”. Although not ancient, Red Disaster is also a diptych that presents the age-old dilemma of crime and punishment. As ancient writing tablets aid later generations in the understanding of the writer’s history and culture, so too, Red Disaster is a chronicle of our times, packaged for the masses as contemporary art.

This painting clearly stirs up modern society’s volatile issue of capital punishment. The image of the chamber, located in a seldom seen dungeon somewhere in America, frames the chair in such a way that it is separate from it. The chair stands alone and is distanced from the surrounding walls and floor. The chair symbolizes the end—an untouchable and unholy final place in life for the condemned. It is a frightening instrument that we dare not touch or talk about, hidden in a place that is reserved only for society’s deviants. I noticed in the chamber, a small sign on the wall in the upper right that reads “SILENCE”. It can be seen on all but the lower right frame of the left panel’s composition. Here, the sign and part of the chair are obliterated by ink smears as if to say “enough silence” about what is happening in our country. People are being murdered every day and capital punishment is sorrowfully lacking in its effectiveness as a deterrent.

The broad fields of red bring to mind images of blood, the chilling representation of violence and death. It is especially poignant in the wake of recent media coverage of the Timothy McViegh and Juan Raul Garza executions in May of 2001, the first federal prisoners to be executed since 1963, the same year Warhol produced Red Disaster. This was also the year that John F. Kennedy was assassinated along with his alleged killer, Lee Harvey Oswald. The vile an overly publicized acts of bloodshed that murderers commit are met with even more acts of violence in the form of institutionalized execution. As endless debates rage over violence, justice, revenge, mercy and punishment, the title of this work, Red Disaster stands out rich in meaning. It suggests to me that we live in a society where the bloody and murderous crimes that people commit against each other are such a disaster that the forms of punishment that must be conceived to pay for these crimes are equally as much of a disaster. There seems to be no effective solution to this problem because people are still being murdered even at this very moment.

An even deeper look at Warhol’s image of the electric chair can reveal it to be a modern day crucifix covered in blood. I am reminded of the alleged criminal, Jesus Christ, who was crucified on a wooden cross at the hands of Roman executioners about two thousand years ago. The cross was the primary instrument used for capital punishment during that time. The victim had his wrists and feet nailed to its rough-hewn beams and was left to hang until he died, usually of suffocation or blood loss. In the case of Jesus, he also had a crown of thorns driven deep into his scalp which is an especially vascular area of the body. This additional act of cruelty led to even more profuse blood loss and he, like the painting, must have been completely saturated with red. The worst part about the crucifixion of Christ in this manner was that he was innocent of the crimes he was accused of. Warhol’s Red Disaster exposes another flaw in the death penalty. As I look at these images, I can’t help to wonder how many innocent people died in that chair. The artist convinces me that this is an unreliable and extremely questionable form of punishment. The fact that we can find no better solution is indeed a disaster.

Conclusion
Red Disaster points out the frustration and anxiety that surrounds the issue of capital punishment where equally valid arguments are presented by both advocates and opponents. I tend to side for the death penalty only because I can see no better alternative. At least some murderers will be eliminated from society and will kill no more. But how many cases exist where the convicted are not guilty, despite evidence to the contrary? How many jury panels have made the wrong decision and sentenced an innocent person to death? Red Disaster is a thought provoking and masterfully produced work that presents a carefully thought out subject with a small section of its canvas left unfinished. I believe the painting suggests that the issue of capital punishment, with all of its controversy, is an endless argument that will never be completely resolved.