ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987) Bomb 1967
ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Bomb
1967
signed, titled and dated '67
painted steel
47 1/2 by 7 7/8 by 7 7/8 in.
120.5 by 20 by 20 cm.
Provenance
Private Collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist in 1967)
Sale: Christie's, New York, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 15 March 2005, Lot 115
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Literature
Georg Frei, Neil Printz and Sally King-Nero, The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculptures 1964-1969: 02B, New York 2004, p. 281, n. 1936, illustrated in color
"It's actually closer to the heart of what matters about Andy Warhol's art than anything colorful and pleasant and poppy would be. [...] The real heart of Andy Warhol's art — the thing that drives it — is its use of things that are found around us in everyday culture. It's really the heir to Marcel Duchamp's famous 1917 sculpture called "Fountain," which was nothing more than a store-bought urinal. [...] It's, I think, Warhol's only actual readymade."
- Blake Gopnik, in conversation with Sabri Ben-Achour, 2023
Andy Warhol's Bomb is a striking, unique sculpture that unites the most potent elements of his practice into a singular image. The silver finish and cultural symbolism of the object are quintessential markings of Warhol's oeuvre, qualities that testify to the complexity of Warhol's artistic project that at once appropriated the tools of popular culture and delivered an incisive critique of a society that was becoming captive to the mass distribution of images. Warhol's work is as important and relevant today as it was at the moment of its making. Whilst history considers him one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, one cannot escape the timelessness and prescience of the present work as a totem, an arbiter, and a disquieting memento mori even now.
Repurposing a discarded 'dummy' bomb for use in training exercises, the object itself is a genuine military article in all but payload. It is this collision of authenticity and superficiality that is the cornerstone of Warhol's practice in the 60s, and that makes Bomb such a thought-provoking icon. By 1967, the Vietnam War had entered its most heightened and bloody phase with the arrival of American ground troops in 1965. With the mass protesting of the war, the counterculture and antiwar sentiment that was stirring in the late 1960s, the image of the bomb is a contentious thing, one that would not have been lost on Warhol. The silver coating removes the primacy of the object's function, yet it shirks decoration. Like his silkscreen canvases, Warhol uses the form of the object to create a symbol; instantly recognizable, but essentially hollow. It opens a void in our perception, allowing the spectator a critical glance at the social and cultural function of the image or object itself.
The inception of Bomb for Warhol was little over twenty years after J. Robert Oppenheimer's creation of the atomic bomb that would see terrifying use at the end of World War Two. With the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and indeed the broader threat of nuclear warfare throughout the Cold War, likely stirring Warhol's own response in his 1963 Red Explosion (Atomic Bomb) from his Death and Disaster silkscreen paintings, the picture and threat of 'the bomb' was surely never far from mind throughout Warhol's life.
As it happened, in 1965, New York City declared a water shortage as the result of a years-long drought since 1961 which imposed restrictions on water usage until January 1967 when the drought came to an end. As a celebration, the Sunday New York magazine portion of the short-lived New York World-Journal Tribune announced a 'Comb Bomb with Me' contest for readers to design a water bomb. The prize for the winner of the contest, Ben Dubose of Brooklyn, was the present sculpture, Bomb.
A sleek and shiny silver object, DuBose reportedly was disappointed that his prized Warhol sculpture did not showcase Warhol's notorious pop imagery like his early sculptures of Brillo Boxes and other identifiable branded material. According to Dubose, Warhol replied "It's so beautiful I couldn't ruin it by painting anything on it once I painted it silver. I've sat and stared at it for weeks. Isn't it beautiful?" (the artist quoted in The Andy Warhol Catalog Raisonne, 02B, Paintings and Sculptures 1964-1969, New York, 2004, p. 279). The silver finish of the sculpture reflects the silver finish of Warhol's Factory, with Bomb serving as a relic and vestige of the storied studio space. The silver-filled Factory along with the silver Bomb and silver Coca-Coca bottles also created at this time cement silver as the new identity of Warhol's brand, replacing the Campbell's Soup or other branding that Warhol appropriated as his own.
The photographer behind the image of Warhol's studio, Billy Name, was responsible for the physical transformation of the Factory into the futuristic silver space that the Factory became. Name's own apartment had been decorated in a similar fashion and upon Warhol paying a visit to him, Warhol requested a similar décor scheme to reflect his new phase in his artistic identity. After spending four months embellishing the Factory in spray paint, aluminum foil, and other reflective materials, "he was not only reinforcing a series of associations between the fields of painting, cinema and machine culture, he was appropriating the color as his brand and making its associations ambient – a signature mileu" (Ibid., p. 15).
Associated with Warhol's most celebrated Death and Disaster series, Bomb is perhaps the artist's most menacing appropriation – a picture of death and modern warfare. It goes further than this, however, as a unique and rare object by the artist. Where Warhol's practice was chiefly image-based, embodying the appetite of a culture newly glutted by media in print and televisual form, the present work is a real object, treading the fine line between reality and simulation still nearer, still more daringly. While Warhol's prize does not issue the same threat, it is a haunting symbol of how prevalent violence and devastation has become in our culture – a type of newspeak and rolling 24/7 headline that the contemporary eye is all too well-versed in, and that Warhol's audience would similarly recognize in the coverage of the Vietnam conflict in period. The thin silver veil applied to the surface of Bomb transforms the piece into an icon, a striking and powerful reminder of our mortality.
Warhol's art still has the capacity to shock, to challenge, and to ask serious questions of how we digest the objects and images we are presented with. Bomb is one of the most significant works to leave the studio in the 1960s, from the unquestionable peak of Warhol's career. It's coming to market represents a rare opportunity to acquire one of the most serious and meaningful works of sculpture by the artist who shifted the dialogue around contemporary art practice, and changed the way we speak about art and mediated culture forever.
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Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Bomb
1967
signed, titled and dated '67
painted steel
47 1/2 by 7 7/8 by 7 7/8 in.
120.5 by 20 by 20 cm.
Provenance
Private Collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist in 1967)
Sale: Christie's, New York, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 15 March 2005, Lot 115
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Literature
Georg Frei, Neil Printz and Sally King-Nero, The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: Paintings and Sculptures 1964-1969: 02B, New York 2004, p. 281, n. 1936, illustrated in color
"It's actually closer to the heart of what matters about Andy Warhol's art than anything colorful and pleasant and poppy would be. [...] The real heart of Andy Warhol's art — the thing that drives it — is its use of things that are found around us in everyday culture. It's really the heir to Marcel Duchamp's famous 1917 sculpture called "Fountain," which was nothing more than a store-bought urinal. [...] It's, I think, Warhol's only actual readymade."
- Blake Gopnik, in conversation with Sabri Ben-Achour, 2023
Andy Warhol's Bomb is a striking, unique sculpture that unites the most potent elements of his practice into a singular image. The silver finish and cultural symbolism of the object are quintessential markings of Warhol's oeuvre, qualities that testify to the complexity of Warhol's artistic project that at once appropriated the tools of popular culture and delivered an incisive critique of a society that was becoming captive to the mass distribution of images. Warhol's work is as important and relevant today as it was at the moment of its making. Whilst history considers him one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, one cannot escape the timelessness and prescience of the present work as a totem, an arbiter, and a disquieting memento mori even now.
Repurposing a discarded 'dummy' bomb for use in training exercises, the object itself is a genuine military article in all but payload. It is this collision of authenticity and superficiality that is the cornerstone of Warhol's practice in the 60s, and that makes Bomb such a thought-provoking icon. By 1967, the Vietnam War had entered its most heightened and bloody phase with the arrival of American ground troops in 1965. With the mass protesting of the war, the counterculture and antiwar sentiment that was stirring in the late 1960s, the image of the bomb is a contentious thing, one that would not have been lost on Warhol. The silver coating removes the primacy of the object's function, yet it shirks decoration. Like his silkscreen canvases, Warhol uses the form of the object to create a symbol; instantly recognizable, but essentially hollow. It opens a void in our perception, allowing the spectator a critical glance at the social and cultural function of the image or object itself.
The inception of Bomb for Warhol was little over twenty years after J. Robert Oppenheimer's creation of the atomic bomb that would see terrifying use at the end of World War Two. With the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and indeed the broader threat of nuclear warfare throughout the Cold War, likely stirring Warhol's own response in his 1963 Red Explosion (Atomic Bomb) from his Death and Disaster silkscreen paintings, the picture and threat of 'the bomb' was surely never far from mind throughout Warhol's life.
As it happened, in 1965, New York City declared a water shortage as the result of a years-long drought since 1961 which imposed restrictions on water usage until January 1967 when the drought came to an end. As a celebration, the Sunday New York magazine portion of the short-lived New York World-Journal Tribune announced a 'Comb Bomb with Me' contest for readers to design a water bomb. The prize for the winner of the contest, Ben Dubose of Brooklyn, was the present sculpture, Bomb.
A sleek and shiny silver object, DuBose reportedly was disappointed that his prized Warhol sculpture did not showcase Warhol's notorious pop imagery like his early sculptures of Brillo Boxes and other identifiable branded material. According to Dubose, Warhol replied "It's so beautiful I couldn't ruin it by painting anything on it once I painted it silver. I've sat and stared at it for weeks. Isn't it beautiful?" (the artist quoted in The Andy Warhol Catalog Raisonne, 02B, Paintings and Sculptures 1964-1969, New York, 2004, p. 279). The silver finish of the sculpture reflects the silver finish of Warhol's Factory, with Bomb serving as a relic and vestige of the storied studio space. The silver-filled Factory along with the silver Bomb and silver Coca-Coca bottles also created at this time cement silver as the new identity of Warhol's brand, replacing the Campbell's Soup or other branding that Warhol appropriated as his own.
The photographer behind the image of Warhol's studio, Billy Name, was responsible for the physical transformation of the Factory into the futuristic silver space that the Factory became. Name's own apartment had been decorated in a similar fashion and upon Warhol paying a visit to him, Warhol requested a similar décor scheme to reflect his new phase in his artistic identity. After spending four months embellishing the Factory in spray paint, aluminum foil, and other reflective materials, "he was not only reinforcing a series of associations between the fields of painting, cinema and machine culture, he was appropriating the color as his brand and making its associations ambient – a signature mileu" (Ibid., p. 15).
Associated with Warhol's most celebrated Death and Disaster series, Bomb is perhaps the artist's most menacing appropriation – a picture of death and modern warfare. It goes further than this, however, as a unique and rare object by the artist. Where Warhol's practice was chiefly image-based, embodying the appetite of a culture newly glutted by media in print and televisual form, the present work is a real object, treading the fine line between reality and simulation still nearer, still more daringly. While Warhol's prize does not issue the same threat, it is a haunting symbol of how prevalent violence and devastation has become in our culture – a type of newspeak and rolling 24/7 headline that the contemporary eye is all too well-versed in, and that Warhol's audience would similarly recognize in the coverage of the Vietnam conflict in period. The thin silver veil applied to the surface of Bomb transforms the piece into an icon, a striking and powerful reminder of our mortality.
Warhol's art still has the capacity to shock, to challenge, and to ask serious questions of how we digest the objects and images we are presented with. Bomb is one of the most significant works to leave the studio in the 1960s, from the unquestionable peak of Warhol's career. It's coming to market represents a rare opportunity to acquire one of the most serious and meaningful works of sculpture by the artist who shifted the dialogue around contemporary art practice, and changed the way we speak about art and mediated culture forever.
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
