Ana Mendieta and Andy Warhol Comparison Essay

Ana Mendieta and Andy Warhol are both artists that take social contemporary issues and their own life experiences to make artwork that’s not only personal but also universal. The only differences among the two is that Ana Mendieta uses the body (physical body or blood) and nature to make her compositions that focuses on the social issues of race, identity, gender (specifically women and their bodies), as well as different degrees of violence in society (specifically towards women and people of color). While Andy Warhol experiences with the use of color, shape and line to make his pop art that focuses on the use of advertisement images and celebrities that illustrates his personal experiences to a more general audience, which follows the idea that celebrities aren’t much different than logo/package design in order to entertain or sell to the common people. Throughout Mendieta’s work it possess a strong correction of the human body (female) being united with nature, which is a symbolic representation of the body going back to its roots/place of origin. Mendieta’s work is influenced by her biography due to her having a strong desire on returning to her home country Cuba after being separated at the age of 12 because of Castro regime. Through a website titled Artnet on a page dedicated to Ana Mendieta states a short paragraph of her career which states “The artist’s nomadic early life had a profound impact on her, and much of her work addressed her desire to return to her homeland.”(pg 1) In contrast to Mendieta, Andy Warhol works also took influence from his early childhood which mostly stems from his mother.The live experience he has growing up consisted of him living in a poor neighborhood in Pennsylvania growing up as a “nobody” who wanted to be a “somebody”. This type of thinking translated in his work by taking products that are considered trash such as a can of chicken soup or a box of cereal and turning it into a work of art that’s worth thousands. In comparison to Mendieta’s her lived experience also reflects in her artwork by taking a statement and making it literal, which is done by her taking her physical body in the nude and planting herself in nature. Another way she reflected her live experience in her work is by again using the female body or blood to represent violence done towards women during her time period. Not only has both artists lives became a strong influence over their work but the work they both produced also later influenced the way they lived and ended their lives, such as Ana Mendieta having ended her life with domestic violence towards women due to her being thrown out a window by her husband and unfortunately dying. While Andy Warhol’s work is synonymous to his life by how someone who was considered nothing later than became something even bigger. Stated in an art website titled Artnet his page quoted that “Shocking in its time for its embrace of "low art" and detachment from emotion, his early work quickly brought him fame, as he produced the now-infamous series of Campbell’s Soup Cans...”(pg 1) When talking about the materials used both artists choose something direct and simple in order to send a deeper message. Andy chooses things that are considered trash or common (such as advertisement) and transforms them by creating a pop art of various colors in order to make it stand out. In a book titled The Art of Self-Invention by Joanne Finkelstein she quoted, “Like all languages advertising is polysemic, it can express multiple levels and registers of meaning. At this point art and advertising overlap in the capacity to interpellate diverse audiences.”(pg 151) This quote supports the type of art Andy put out to the world by expressing that using advertising materials as the center piece of your art work can be just as powerful as anything else because of the strong meaning you put behind that image. While Ana choose blood, nature, the body, and sometimes fire to send a direct correlation to violence towards females as well as the desire to reconnect to her origin/ homeland. In relationship to Ana’s work Joanne also quoted, “A persistent puzzle in the study of human identity is that of embodiment. While we are all flesh and blood, and share the ambiguity of body language, it is the case that the visible body marks a limit.” (pg 133) What Joanne stated in her book supports the type of work Ana created because even if the body is a universal item depending on the context it is used it sends a strong message to the viewers that is also extremely direct.

Art Works

Work Cited

“Ana Mendieta.” Artnet, http://www.artnet.com/artists/ana-mendieta/. 

“Andy Warhol.” Artnet, http://www.artnet.com/artists/andy-warhol/. 

Channel, The Art. “Andy Warhol Documentary Film Part 1 of 2.” YouTube, The Art Channel, 9 Nov. 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQXpqQO4vaE. 

Finkelstein, Joanne. The Art of Self Invention: Image and Identity in Popular Visual Culture. I.B Tauris, 2007.