© Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Currently not on view
Birmingham Race Riot,
1964
This silkscreen employs an image by photojournalist Charles Moore that documents police officers and dogs attacking a non-violent protestor in Birmingham, Alabama. Immediately following the publication of Moore’s photographs in Life magazine, on May 17, 1963, Warhol made more than a dozen silkscreened paintings incorporating them. The following year, he reversed and cropped Moore’s photograph for this print. These protests were considered a major turning point in the civil rights movement; the fact that protesters, including many young students, were met with violence by local law enforcement—revealed in widely circulated photographs, including Moore’s—elicited public outrage. This is one of very few works by Warhol that explicitly addresses the racialized political violence of the 1960s. Moore would later sue Warhol for unauthorized use of his images.
More Context
A year after its publication in <em>Life</em> magazine, Charles Moore’s iconic image of police dogs attacking a peaceful high school protester in Birmingham was cropped, reversed, and silkscreened by Warhol. By removing the image from its news context and presenting it as an art print, the artist introduced an emotional distance from political protest, exposing the ways media imagery desensitizes the public to violence. Critics have problematized Warhol’s selection of photographs like this one that perpetuate an image of victimized blacks, amplified by the print’s heightened contrast.
Information
1964
North America, United States, Connecticut, New Haven
