Ana Mendieta and Andy Warhol were both very influential artists who some would say, were ahead of their time. While they both artists who found there way to the great city of New York, their obvious similarities end there. However, their genius and the way they employed their origin in their art make them one of the same.
Ana Mendieta was a contemporary/modern artist born in Cuba. Growing up in Cuba with her grandma transformed her into a political person who felt very connected to her motherland. However, when the war in Cuba made it too dangerous for them to continue living there, Mendieta’s family sought refuge in America. This separation from her homeland affected Ana greatly, resulting in her fascination with land and earth. Ana’s experience as a refugee who was torn away from her home influenced her work greatly, as did her role as a feminist. The themes most present in her works were: feminism, violence, life, and death.
Ana’s land art pieces illuminated her interest in exploring the body and earth as subjects.
This picture depicts a woman who is one of the Earth. This speaks volumes for how badly being torn from her Motherland affected her. This is just one of many pieces that portray the body as apart of the Earth. Ana almost always featured herself in her pieces, exploring the aforementioned themes. In her pieces, she would usually either be apart of the land surrounding her or she’d serve the role as a woman who has just experienced a violent, sexual crime. She often operated as a spy in her art, embracing the “power to be and not be, to detach oneself from oneself, to be oneself and at the same time another.” (Finkelstein, 61).
Often dousing herself, she would then a model a scene of a sexual crime against a woman. She intended to bring awareness to rape crimes whilst fighting for a woman’s right to her body. Her utilization of animal blood and nature would help depict her rape scenes as incredibly disturbing and graphic. The message: rape is a graphic, violent, terrible crime that, under no circumstances, should ever be conditioned. Her technique was vital in portraying the subject as dead while the technique she employed in her more naturistic pieces was vital in portraying the subject as reborn or alive. Because she used herself as a subject one could say she became synonymous with her work. Through the presentation of her work she was able to invent herself. While Mendieta was known throughout the art world, she wasn’t publicly famous.
In contrast, Andy Warhol was a commercial artist later turned pop artist who was born in America. As a young child he suffered from a rare disease that resulted in the permanent blotching of his skin. This gave Andy great anxiety about his appearance that had a great impact on his work. His experiences with the St. Vitus’ disease sparked his obsession with appearances. Unlike Ana, Andy’s work had no narrative; it was strictly about appearances. His anxiety and insecurities over of both his appearance and homsexuality resulted in him rarely every featuring himself in his art. To be fair, “much of popular culture reinforces the importance we place on physical appearance as indicative of identity.” (Finkelstein, 13). Instead, his subjects were usually colorful objects or people. In short, what you saw is what you got from his work.
Featured above is a painting of Campbell soup. Andy’s intention was to draw things people see in everyday life. While Andy’s work had no narrative, E.H Gombrich’s famous claim ensured that it had “the capacity to train the eye and shape how we interpreted the world.” (Finkelstein, 6).
His obsession with fame, Hollywood stars, and changing his physical appearance spoke volumes in his art. He was rarely the subject of his own art and when he was, his self portraits were bizarre and colorful, featuring only his face.
He became synonymous with pop art, just Ana did with her art. His Campbell Soup piece catapulted him into fame while his piece on Marilyn Monroe only worked to solidify that fame. Warhol used screen printing to essentially paint an image onto canvas. He would then use colors and/or repetition of images to enhance the piece. The theme most typically present in his art was transformation. Or, more specifically, transformation of the ordinary. Warhol employed the screen printing technique to help “transform” ordinary images into something more remarkable. His ascension to fame, and before that, his obsession with fame, made him a very driven individual who worked to produce as many pieces at a time as possible. Through his work, Andy created his public self: a star, born in a place he wasn’t from. He groomed his identity, appearing bizarre so as to never be associated with being boring or ordinary. In The Art of Self Invention by Joanne Finkelstein explores this technique: “...identity or subjectivity being an asset to be groomed and presented to best effect…” (Finkelstein, 3).
Both Andy and Ana incorporated photography into their art.
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