The painting "registers the passage of time and conveys a preoccupation with degradation, exuding destruction and frailty."

That's the art dealer's description of Andy Warhol's "Small Torn Campbell's Soup Can (Pepper Pot)," which just sold for $11.8 million.




So do we like the torn label soup can better than the untorn soup cans in more familiar Warhol paintings? Does it draw us into deep thoughts about degradation, destruction, and frailty? And why pepper pot, rather than the more familiar tomato or chicken noodle? If the torn can drags us into thoughts of death, then pepper pot... oh my God! We're going to Hell!