Andy Warhol’s film consisting largely of a static view of the Empire State Building at night is Empire.
Warhol made Empire in 1964, filming the Empire State Building from the Rockefeller Center area in New York. The camera remains almost completely stationary while the film records the building and the changing night sky over an extended period.
The film is a major example of Warhol’s experiments with duration and minimal action. Rather than presenting a conventional plot, it asks viewers to notice tiny changes in light, darkness, and the image itself. The work is closely connected to Warhol’s broader interest in treating ordinary or overlooked moments as artistic subjects.
Empire is distinct from Sleep, another long Warhol film, because Sleep focuses on a person sleeping. Empire’s subject is the illuminated skyscraper and the passage of time.