NARRATOR: 

Andy Warhol’s skull images are a bit enigmatic. Are they elements of still life? Portraits without the flesh? He made these in 1976. 

MARC HUESTIS: 

Definitely ‘76, ‘77, that was, you know, definitely the time of punk rock, and sort of more obsessive death-type images.  

NARRATOR: 

Warhol was deeply involved with the downtown New York City music scene. He had been the producer for the proto-punk band the Velvet Underground. Producer Marc Huestis also sees a possible connection with the infamous incident of Warhol being shot, in 1968.  

HUESTIS: 

The assassination attempt reverberated in his life, and maybe those skulls were a reflection and a rumination of the assassination attempt.  

It seems like that definitely did change his persona, but that he was always constantly playing with the fact that, Was it real or was it not? I mean, he said it almost was like seeing somebody else on television or in a movie.