To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Andy Warhol’s iconic “Empire,” the experimental film will be shown continuously in the Fifth Avenue lobby of New York City’s Empire State Building. The screening, which will take place throughout the month of July, will be complemented by images of Warhol’s art and details of his life and filmmaking.

“Empire” is a silent black-and-white film that consists of eight hours and five minutes of continuous slow motion footage of the Empire State Building. Filming began on the night of July 25-26, 1964, from 8:10pm to 2:30am from the 41st floor of the Time-Life Building in the Rockefeller Foundation office. Punctuated by the Empire State Building’s changing lights and the sky above, “Empire” is hailed as an avant-garde masterpiece, challenging viewers with its daunting running time, yet raising profound questions about time, subject, and personal reflection. When explaining the film, Warhol said, “I never liked the idea of picking out certain scenes and pieces of time and putting them together, because...it’s not like life...what I liked was chunks of time all together, every real moment.”