Richard Axsom, senior curator at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and contributing essayist to the catalog for the exhibit "Andy Warhol: Prints from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation" at the Portland Art Museum, discusses Andy Warhol's preoccupation with death.
In the video, Axsom discusses how themes of death course through Warhol's work. "You see it in the Electric Chair, you see it in Sunset, you see it in Flash, you see it in still lifes, you see it in his Monroe set. That's the year she died. Some have referred to the face itself, as it goes through contortions of color, as Monroe's death mask."
The exhibition will be traveling to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA and will be on view from June 11 - September 3, 2017.