The
Work of Ana Mendieta
Ana Mendieta was a Cuban American
performance artist, sculptor and painter who is best known for her “earth-body”
artwork. Ana Mendieta’s art explored themes (identity, violence, nature) that
often pushed ethnic, sexual, moral, religious and political boundaries (Castillo). She used unusual
materials like blood, dirt, water and fire, and displayed her work through
photography, film and live performances. According to Finkelstein, the idea of
a self endorses the reality of an inner coherence as if it were the driving
force behind our achievements (Finkelstein, 137). Her biography has a huge
influence on her work due to the fact that most of her artwork is with nature.
Most of her artwork makes her feel closer or reminds her of the life she had in
Cuba. As an immigrant, Mendieta felt a disconnect in the United States. The
trauma of being uprooted from her Cuban homeland as a girl would leave her with
questions about her identity and make her more conscious of being a woman of
color. These questions would appear in her work and is the reason she explored
many themes (these questions are considered her driving force). She would urge viewers
to disregard their gender, race or other defining societal factors and instead
connect with the humanity they share with others.
She is very synonymous with her work
because she often searched for her roots in the earth itself, using it directly
in her art and with her own body. This “return to the earth” was a metaphor for
her life on many levels. Mendieta refers back to the Earth as a sense of home,
literally and figuratively, as a tie to feminism and her womanhood, and her
bond with religion. Fame played a role in her work because her artwork is
feminist and based on violence and rape. Her paintings show the viewer to be
aware of these issues, which could be one of the main reasons fame plays a role
in her work. According to The New York Times, in one of her best known
“Siluetas,” “Imagen de Yagul” from 1973, Mendieta incorporated her body in the
piece by lying down nude in an old neglected stone tomb in Mexico (Castillo). She then
strategically placed white flowers over her, as if they were growing out of her
body. The making of the ‘Silueta’ in nature keeps the transition between her
homeland and new home. It is a way of reclaiming her roots and becoming one
with nature (Castillo). Although the
culture in which Mendieta lives is part of her, her roots and cultural identity
are a result of her Cuban heritage. This also means that she has done a great
job in inventing herself in her works and her public self because they
understand her as a pioneer, a maverick and as a great artist today. Mendieta’s
work has also grown considerably.
The Work of Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol is one of most influential
artists of the 20th century. He’s the most famous of the pop artists
who emerged from the 1960s New York City counterculture. Throughout a prolific
creative career that spanned drawing, painting, printmaking, film, music and
video, Warhol has left a great impression on American culture and modern art. Andy Warhol is known for his bright, colorful paintings and prints of subjects
ranging from celebrities, to everyday products such as cans of soup and Brillo
pads (What Was Andy Warhol Thinking). His parents were
Russian immigrants, and Andy was the youngest of three sons. It remains
credible because the truthfulness of publicity is judged, not by the real
fulfillment of its promises, but by the relevance of its fantasies to those of
the spectator buyer. Its essential application is not to reality but to
daydreams (Berger, 146-147).
His father recognized his son’s artistic
talents and saved enough money to pay for his college education. Death was an
important theme in Andy Warhol’s work from the early 1960s right up until his
death in 1987. Andy Warhol said his interest in the subject came from his friend
Henry Geldzahler, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York.
High profile events like the death of Marilyn Monroe and the assassination of
John F. Kennedy were as interesting to Warhol as car crashes, suicides, riots
and legal executions (What Was Andy Warhol Thinking). His images of human
or animal skulls present death as a universal subject. At the same time, he
explored his own mortality through photographs, prints and paintings in which
he coupled his own image with an emblem of death. Publicity is, in essence
nostalgic. It has to sell the past to the future (Berger, 139). Warhol created
the series, entitled “Flash–November 22, 1963,” five years after Kennedy’s
death, drawing off the emotional response of the American public, the iconic
status achieved by JFK and his widow Jackie, and the ability of the media to
transform an image from fascinating to dull and back again. Andy Warhol has
succeeded in selling the past to the future by reminding people of the death of
JFK.
The influences that turned Warhol from a sickly
boy in Pittsburgh, into one of the most influential figures of the twentieth
century, began at birth. His biography has a huge influence on his work. Julia
Warhola is one out of three people who have influence his work during his
childhood. She was Warhol’s constant companion when he became ill with
Syndenham’s chorea, a neurological disorder that can cause uncoordinated
jerking movements of the face, hands and feet (Santoro). Julia provided
Warhol with art materials and encouraged him to draw. The influence of Julia’s
playful line drawing style can be seen in much of Warhol’s work. His self-identity
and live experience did influence the way he made are art through his self
portraits about identity. In his self-portraits, Warhol often exaggerated,
transformed or disguised himself so that the images became caricatures of his
real face. In his Self-Portrait with Fright Wig series of 1986 his ghostly,
white head is isolated from his body by his dark clothing, making it appear
almost to float against the dark background like a skull (What Was Andy
Warhol Thinking).
He wears a silver wig, which he often used in his range of disguises. The wig
hair is wild and messy while his blankly staring eyes look straight ahead.
Warhol also frequently used art to explore his homosexual identity. In his
early line drawings of young men, we see his fascination with the male body. From
a young age Warhol was infatuated with fame, fashion, celebrity and Hollywood.
As a boy living in Pittsburgh, he found escape from his ordinary working-class
life in popular teen magazines and by collecting autographs from film stars. Finkelstein mentioned that like all languages advertising is polysemic, it can express multiple levels and registers of meaning (Finkelstein, 151). Andy Warhol's paintings of the Campbell's soup can are an acknowledgement of the similarities between the visual sophistication of the new advertising of the twentieth century and the social function of art.
The Work of Jean Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat, son of immigrant
Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother never anticipated that one day his work
would be viewed internationally. At a young age Basquiat’s mother instilled the
love of art in him by constantly taking him to museums and enrolling him in art
programs. His talent for art was discovered at age 4 by his art teachers in the
New York Museums Youth art program (Art, Identity, and Culture). He began to
graffiti buildings in lower Manhattan under the tag line “SAMO.” His street art
portrays dichotomies comparing social status such as wealth vs. poverty and
were heavily influenced by the neo-expressionist and abstract movements. As a
result of his shift in focus, his canvas artwork explores the themes of
mortality, race, self-identity, and religion. A common theme in nearly all of
Basquiat’s works are the ideas finding one’s self and defining individual
values while breaking social conventions. By the several different versions of
self-portraits that Basquiat has of himself and the use of people of color in
his artwork, it is clear to see that he was on a constant search of
self-discovery and understand his race. Through the use of skeletal figures and
religious references in his many works of art, his infatuation with these
concepts can be viewed. In the piece referred to as “devil,” he plays with the
concepts of self-identity and religion simultaneously (Art,
Identity, and Culture). He was very synonymous with his artwork.
He can be seen as a very resourceful artist because he can use objects, he finds
in the streets to create art. In his untitled
painting referred to as “Devil” Basquiat refers to the “devil,” or evils within
us all. In his acrylic piece of art, he has an image of a devil like figure
hidden behind splatters and streaks of multicolored paint. The horned creature
is being masked by the surrounding and overlapping hues of color. The sporadic
brushwork draws the viewers’ eyes away from the wicked looking silhouette thus
masking its presence.
Finkelstein mentions that “we use physical
appearance and material possessions to express identity and that we accept a
complimentary connection between inner character and our material circumstances
(Finkelstein, 26). His work did not just depict his thoughts and views on
mortality and self-identity, but it also gave insight to his personal life. As
a young black male who was used to the ghettos of New York, rarely had support
in his passions from others, having no approval from his parents, and somehow
rose to great success and fame by his self it is understandable to see why he
always questioned who he was and what defined him. Being under tremendous
personal stress, constantly being in the public eye, and having an international
reputation for being a prominent artist led him to develop a heroin dependency.
Looking at Basquiat’s artistic style and the characters he draws a viewer of
his artwork can see the effects of his personal life shaped his art. The work
of art offers insight to the life of the famous artist. His work evolved as he
evolved, from street art in lower New York as a teenager, to exhibiting the
concepts of self-identity and discovery. As the world began to recognize the
talent that he possessed the world also gained insight on his struggles and
suffering. The same pain that Basquiat carried throughout his life brought him
world fame, riches, and remembered as one of the most influential artists in
history also led to his demise. Although he constantly questioned his identity
and what defined him as a person in his work it also displayed his life story.
Works Cited
Art, Identity, and Culture. n.d. Electronics.
<http://reinterpellations.web.unc.edu/about/basquiats-devil/basquiats-devil-essay/>.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. British
Broadcasting Corporation & Penguin, n.d.
Castillo, Monica. Overlooked No More: Ana
Mendieta, a Cuban Artist Who Pushed Boundaries. 19 September 2018.
Electronics.
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/obituaries/ana-mendieta-overlooked.html>.
Finkelstein, Joanne. The Art of Self Invention
Image and Identity in Popular Visual Culture. I.B.Taurus & Co Ltd,
2007.
Santoro, Gary. Three Big Influences on Andy Warhol.
3 February 2016. Electronics.
<https://vertufineart.com/who-influenced-andy-warhol/>.
What Was Andy Warhol Thinking. n.d. Electronics. <https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/andy-warhol-2121/what-was-andy-warhol-thinking>.
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