Mellanie Barrios
Prof. Doris Cacoilo
Self I As Image
10 April 2019
Ana Mendieta, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat
Throughout the course, we have discussed and learned about different artists that have different stories and use different techniques to express themselves through their artwork. Aside from their differences, all these different artists tend to share a few things in common. Ana Mendieta, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat are three of the many artists that we have been focused on in class. These three share a few things in common; they are very hard-working and talented artists; they are icons in today’s art culture and their work inspired and influence many people from all over the world.
Ana Mendieta
Ana Mendieta was born on November 18, 1948 in Havana, Cuba. In 1961, Fidel Castro had taken over Cuba which lead Ana and her sister, Raquelin Mendieta, leave their family and homeland behind and come to the United States as immigrants. Both the sisters were raised in different orphanages and foster homes in Iowa. Ana Mendieta considered herself an artist in exile. She was a performance artist, sculptor, painter and video artist, but was best known for her “Silueta Series” where she involved herself using her own body to create meaningful silhouettes in nature by making body prints or painting her outline onto a wall; she imprinted these silhouettes in grass, sand and dirt and used different natural materials that included leaves, twigs and blood. In the article, Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance, Heuer states, “She is the beautiful young multicultural woman artist working with ideas and forms of gender and culture in the heyday of feminist art and identity politics.” Although Ana did not consider herself to be a feminist because she felt that it was a movement that only related to white middle-class women, she was a feminist and she expressed that in her work very well. She was outspoken about issues like campus rape and domestic violence when it was not a subject that anyone shed a light on. In March 1973, Mendieta addressed the issue of campus rape in her piece, Rape Scene, in which she created in response to the murder incident of a nursing student, Sara Ann Otten, who was raped and murdered by another student at the University of Iowa, while Mendieta was attending the university. The act of the situation had moved and frightened her, but she had created this piece as a reaction against the idea of violence against women that then was recognized and had been given the opportunity to attend a program in Rome, Italy to study art and create a project.
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the early 1920’s his parents, Julia Warhol and Ondrej Warhol, immigrated from an area in the Carpathian Mountains; that is now known as Eastern Slovakia. They had three sons in total; Paul, John and Andy; begin the youngest. As a child Andy Warhol suffered from Sydenham chorea, a disorder known as St. Vitus dance, which is characterized by involuntary movements. Having this disorder, it would keep Warhol from regularly attending school and instead read comics and Hollywood magazines and play with paper cutouts. He was eight years old when his parents bought him his first camera. In 1945 to 1949, Warhol attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, now known as Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating from art school with a degree in pictorial design, he moved to New York City to pursue a career as a commercial artist. Soon, Andy Warhol became a successful magazine and ad illustrator; an artist, director and producer who became one of the most influential artist and leading figure of the 1960s pop art movement. His work was well known for being bright and colorful, some of his work included the Campbell’s Soup Cans, which was a painting that focused on mass-produced commercial goods. In the book, The Art of Self Invention, Finkelstein states, “advertising is polysemic, it can express multiple levels and registers of meaning.” Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans are said to be an acknowledgement of the similarities between the visual sophistication of the new advertising of the twentieth century and the social function of art. He also painted celebrities that became pop culture icons, but the celebrities he painted are more known for the image that Andy Warhol had created rather than for who the actual person is; such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Mack Jagger and Mao Zedong, which also had gained him a lot of fame and began receiving hundreds of commissions for portraits from socialites and celebrities. Warhol introduced a new form of artistic expression which made his style was fun, unique and different.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960 in Brooklyn, New York. He was the son of Gerard Basquiat; who was Haitian and came from a wealthy family, and Matilde Andradas; who was of Puerto Rican descent, was born in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were very different from each other were his father was an accountant and his mother had a very strong interest in fashion design and sketching. At an early age, Basquiat and his mother would often visit museums; The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He had a lot of interest in drawing that he worked on making drawings that were inspired by television cartoons. His style of painting were a combination of cartoon-like figures that were often combined with words; his inspiration came from Alfred Hitchcock films, automobiles, comic books and the Alfred E. Newman character from Mad. At eight years old Basquiat was hospitalized for a month after getting hit by a car while he was out playing in the streets. He broke his arm, suffered from various internal injuries, and had his spleen removed. His mother had given him a copy of Gray's Anatomy to keep him occupied during his recovery; which had later influenced him to name his band Gray and had great influence in his painting; Irony of Negro Policeman 1981, a sharp critique on members of his own race where he makes the conscious effort to show how African-Americans are controlled by the white majority in America. Before his painting career took off, Basquiat first attracted attention for his graffiti tag "SAMO"; that stood for “Same Old Shit.” His father threw him out of the house when he dropped out of school at the age of seventeen. With nowhere to sleep he crashed at his friends' houses. In order to make money he sold sweatshirts and postcards that were marked with his artwork. After three years of struggling and figuring out what to do, Basquiat and his artwork became big in 1980. His painting focused on social issues he has witness living in New York; wealth vs poverty, racial integration vs segregation, corruption of power, racism, politics in general, etc. Basquiat was very creative when he would express himself through his artwork. He used his beliefs from an artistic point of view, used images, poetry, calligraphy, painting, abstract as well as non-abstract. H was part of some art movements that became more known; neo-expressionism, contemporary art, and primitivism.
The three artists; Ana Mendieta, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, in their own way are some of the most influential artist out there. They expressed themselves through their art work that played a huge role in not only the art community but also in society. Ana Mendieta has influenced the feminist movement that still today has a lot of relevance due to her topic of rape and domestic violence and this is shown from a movement called #MeToo. Andy Warhol was a pop art goddess that helped and turned pop art what it is today. Lastly, Jean Michel Basquiat made social issues he had witness in New York become known, he focused on themes like racism, wealth, and drug abuse which had inspired many.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Michel-Basquiat
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