Electric Chairs

Electric Chairs by Andy Warhol shows an empty electric chair inside a prison execution chamber. The chair is the only subject. There is no person, no action, and no visible violence. The room appears sterile and impersonal, with straps hanging loose and cables trailing on the floor. Warhol repeats the same image multiple times in different colors, often arranged in a grid, so the scene feels mechanical and emotionally distant.

The subject is death reduced to an object and a system. By removing the condemned person and repeating the image like a product, Warhol turns an instrument of execution into a cold symbol of state power and mass media numbness. The bright, artificial colors contrast sharply with the seriousness of what the chair represents. The work asks viewers to confront how easily images of death can become normalized, consumed, and stripped of empathy once they are endlessly reproduced.