Andy Warhol’s Flowers, paintings installation at The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. ©AWF

Procedure:

1. Review the objects students have brought in and explore why they consider these objects to be “not art.”

2. View the PowerPoint Presentation Part 2

3. Use the Handout Aesthetics 3.1 while viewing Andy Warhol’s Electric Chair print. (You may substitute Warhol’s Flowers prints or his camouflaged Self-Portrait)
Students should fill in the first three writing prompts to foster their own personal aesthetic experience.

4. Pair Share Reflection: In groups of two discuss the following quotes. Do you agree with these opinions? How does it relate to the Electric Chair print (or other work)?

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.
-Leo Tolstoy

Art Always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic llife since no living thing can exist without it.
-Boris Pasternak (1840- 1921) English poet, critic, biographer

Back to Top

---

5. Group Dialogue: Use the following questions as prompts at the start of and during the dialogue:

1. Are Andy Warhol’s Electric Chairs (or other work) beautiful? Why or why not?
2. How do Warhol’s choices and treatment of the subject matter make the paintings beautiful or ugly?
3. What do you think was Warhol’s intention with these works? Was he trying to make the death penalty (or another concept) seem beautiful or ugly?
4. Do artworks always relay the meanings that the artist intended them to have?
5. Do artworks have to be beautiful or pretty? Can something that is ugly be considered art?
6. Who decides what is beautiful or ugly?
7. If an artwork makes someone feel sad or bad, can it still be considered good? Why?
8. Do these paintings have value? What kind of value, aesthetic value or monetary?

6. Compare and contrast a Warhol work to one from the Carnegie Museum of Art. Revisit the questions above using the two works to support or refute answers.

Possible pairings are:
For viewing see Image Gallery

Warhol’s Electric Chair and Armchair, 17th century 36 x W: 25 1/4 x D: 20 7/8 inches (H: 91 x W: 64 x D: 53 cm) Gift of Baroness Cassel Van Doorn 58.25.80
Warhol’s camouflaged Self-Portrait and Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn Self-Portrait with Raised Sabre, 1634 etching with touches of burin: H: 4 7/8 x W: 4 1/16 inches (H: 12 x W: 10 cm) Bequest of Charles J. Rosenbloom, by exchange
Warhol’s Flowers prints and Bow Porcelain Factory Bouquet of Flowers c. 1755 porcelain: 9 1/4 x W: 7 1/2 inches (H: 24 x W: 19 cm) Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection 32.1977

Back to Top

---

Adaptation:

For Higher Level Extension: Explain the three fields of philosophy:

Metaphysics: the philosophy of being; the branch of philosophy concerned with the study of the nature of being and beings, existence, time and space, and causality.

Epistemology: theory of knowledge; the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, in particular its foundations, scope, and validity.

Ethics: the study of morality’s effect on conduct.

Museum Workshop participants discuss Andy Warhol's Electric Chair prints and their views about the artist's intentions.

Review Questions:

Questions to determine what is real and what exists (Metaphysics):

• If this were a billboard instead of a work hung in a gallery would it be art?
• Does Warhol’s use of photographic silkscreen make this work more realistic?
• Is this painting objective or subjective in relation to its subject, an electric chair?

Questions to determine what we can know as truth (Epistemology):

• What do we learn about capital punishment in this piece?
• What do we learn about Warhol?
• What would it mean if the original photograph for this painting was staged by Warhol instead of a documentary photo?

Questions to determine what we think is good in ethics and in art (Values/Ethics) 

• What value does this artwork have?
• Is this painting beautiful?
• What values would be reflected if this room was part of your school?
• What would be the ethical implications if a majority of Americans agreed to hang this painting in their living rooms?

---

Activity:

For homework, students should take the object they’ve brought in that “isn’t art,” and wrap it in a material of their choice in order to transform its aesthetics. See pictures

This activity was created by Megan Bonistalli, Art Teacher at Seneca Valley High School. For complete lesson, go to Everyday Objects and Transformation Activity

Back to Top