Andy Warhol's Early Disaster Paintings Explored in Major Mexico City Survey

Museo Jumex in Mexico City presents 'Andy Warhol: Dark Star,' a survey of over 100 early works from June 2 to September 17, 2017. Curated by Douglas Fogle, the exhibition focuses on Warhol's first decade, highlighting his disaster paintings and silkscreened images of celebrities, car crashes, and tragedies. The show excludes later works, instead featuring three dozen paintings that ransack commercial culture, including hand-painted canvases like 'Where is Your Rupture?' (1961) and '129 Die In Jet!' (1962). Fogle titles the show after the etymology of 'disaster,' meaning 'ill-starred event,' and cites a 1963 interview where Warhol linked his art to death. Key pieces include Campbell Soup can paintings juxtaposed with 'Tunafish Disaster' (1963), which depicts botulism victims. Warhol mined advertising, tabloids, and magazines in the early 1960s to capture America's zeitgeist, conflating fame and destruction through serial silkscreen processes. The exhibition includes film, installation, sculpture, photography, and archival material, emphasizing Warhol's exploration of Eros and Thanatos, particularly in Marilyn Monroe paintings created after her death. Fogle's curation demonstrates how these affectless images mirror alienation from mechanical reproduction, with works that remain voyeuristically energetic decades later. The show originated from ArtReview's September 2017 issue, curated with insights from Henry Geldzahler, who prompted Warhol's death representations.