Ana Mendieta’s artwork contains many different themes like gender, race and geography.Mendieta’s use of her body became more simplified and her nude form to portray existence and its opposite, nonattendance is an essential component in her work. Mendieta is known for being an important provider for land art, a movement where landscape and the work of art are inseparably linked, taking the possibilities of art outside gallery limitations.Land is possibly Mendieta’s ultimate inspiration, helping her express the body's place in the world and its association to nature. Many of her artwork theme is associated with the feminist art movement fluidity of gender and the control of her own body parts to blur a line between male/female identification. The use of blood, rocks, feathers, earth, flowers, and fire all expose Mendieta's desire for religious ritual. These items are important because they play a role in the artwork she puts out. Mendieta’s artwork showcased different cycles of life, death, womanhood, rebirth, and renewal. Much of the passion that went into making her work was stoked by a desire to have everybody recognize those considered "other bodies" and to accept humanity as one throbbing whole rather than a world of disjointed individuals. Violence is one subject that plays a big role in influencing the work of Mendieta’s legacy.Themes of domestic violence, turning a blind eye to violence, and the contribution of observing that kind of violence can all be seen as contributing pieces to towards her feminine, earth, and nature-inspired pieces. A lot of her life experiences was expressed in her artwork especially her experiences with violence and abuse. In Understanding Patriarchyit says how “Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence”. Most of Mendieta’s artwork was showcasing how much pain she inured from violence and you can really see the pain in her eyes in some pieces. In chapter 3 there was passage that connected well with Mendieta’s which was “The woman’s sexual passion needs to be minimized so that the spectator may feel that he has the monopoly of such passion.” Many of her artwork was nudity through her perspective not a man’s, she never decreased the way she portrayed her sexuality and she just continued doing her thing. Mendieta wasn’t able to become that famous until she passed away and then her artwork started to get the attention it deserved which usually happens with most artists.
Andy Warhol’s artwork is based on some of the most important figures of his time, his work explores the relationship among celebrity culture and artistic expression. Warhol was diagnosed with Chorea which made him find entertainment in drawing lessons given by his mother while he recovered in bed. He established a love for medium, and he continued to draw in his spare time upon regaining his health. Most of his aesthetic used fine art mediums like photography and drew things that involved household brand and celebrity names. Warhol had always preserved the element of personal and professional mystery because he never chatted about his background and had always came up with a new persona every time people would ask. He started the whole concept of pop-art and displayed a variety of paintings that were fixated on mass-produced commercial goods. He used several mediums in his paintings including silk screening, printmaking, and photography. Warhol is the first artist to use Amiga computers which were presented in 1984 to start numerically produce some new art forms.Warhol had also attempted his hand at sculpting. In “Hollywood Stories”it says, “countless couples, partners and lovers remain mysterious to one another while they enjoy other lives behind a polished surface identity.” Just like Warhol remained to have people see him in different light he wanted to create this image and persona that people would find him to be mysterious and different. He wanted his live to be seen in a good light and this reason can be because he struggles with his own insecurities about himself. Warhol invented himself by the artwork that he did made containing celebrities and pop art.
Jean-Michel Basquiat had signature style of drawing which was based on obsessive scribbling, vague symbols, diagrams, and mask-and-skull imagery. Around 1983, he met Andy Warhol, who would start to become a mentor and idol for him. They had both collaborated on a sequence of canvases before Warhol had died in 1987. His work is how the 1980s American Punk, graffiti-based and counter-cultural practice became completely acknowledged, judgmentally embraced and a popularly celebrated phenomenon. His street art portrays clashes of the social status between the wealth vs. poverty and it stayed deeply influenced by the abstract movements. Throughout his canvas paintings we got to see more abstracted figures and historical examinations of his personal life. Many of his canvas artwork showed the themes of race, mortality, self-identity, and religion. A common theme in mostly all of Basquiat’s works is the concept of discovering one’s true self and outlining specific morals though breaking social resolutions. From the numeroustypesof self-portraits that Basquiathas of himself to the usage of people of color in his artwork,it is clearto see that he was on a continuous searchof self-discovery and trying to understand more about his race. Basquiat used skeletal figures and religious indications in a lot of his artwork, and fascinationwith these things can be noticed in a lot of his things.One piece that is known as the “devil,” he creates the conceptions of self-identity and religion throughout the artwork. This piece had also given a perceptive into his personal life. Basquiat was a young black male that was used to the ghettosof New York, and barely had any support for his passions from others, having no approval from his parents,and with all that he was able to rise to great success and fame all by himself.It is reasonable to see why he was always questioning who he was and what defined him. In Finkelstein it says: “The sensation of pain or pleasure cannot be removed from the mind, nor the tone of voice separated from the facial look.” Basquiat’s artwork seemed to have a lot of pain and emotion that he was experiencing in his lifetime. The memories of pain are imprinted in his mind which is why he expresses it throughout his art which to me seems very therapeutic way to release all of it.
Works Cited
https://www.guggenheim.org/arts-curriculum/topic/ana-mendieta
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