Ana Mendieta and Andy Warhol lived during similar time periods and influenced many with their artworks. They worked in different styles and their work remains relevant to interpret in our modern age. As Berger similarly wrote in Ways of Seeing, “the art of any period tends to serve the ideological interests of the ruling class” (Berger 88.) Observing the work of these two artists can help us understand what major influences they took from their world during their time making artwork. Warhol was known for screen printing and Mendieta was known for performance art. Both of these artists are communicating a message about the present, what themes they choose to dive into creating the art for the difference.
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Andy Warhol, Untitled from Marilyn Monroe, 1967 |
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Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup, 1968 |
Andy Warhol gained huge success during the Pop Art movement. With the help of printing for quick reproduction and mass media culture in the 1960s, he gained a lot of popularity. He worked on different mediums throughout his career, from painting to filmmaking but was prolific for his silkscreen work. His work followed a theme of celebrities and consumer products for the majority of his career. Andy Warhol's self created identity was a strong part of his fame, this relates to a quote from Joanne Finkelstein, “Such a character values the idea of a ‘core self’ that emanates our ethical best but also understands the necessity of the opposite, namely, being able to invent an identity to suit the fluid character of cosmopolitan life” (Finkelstein 10). I find this quote relatable to Warhol because he focused on items with a heavy identity, like movie stars and popularly branded items. He grew up in Pittsburg, PA born in 1928 with a hardworking family not of much wealth. He was always encouraged by his mother since childhood to pursue his art abilities and eventually went on to graduate from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949. Then Warhol moved to New York at the age of 18 to work in commercial illustration and he worked on magazines such as Vogue and Glamour. Two exhibitions in 1962 announced Andy Warhol’s dramatic entry into the art world. This included his series of Campbell’s soup cans on 32 canvases and numerous portraits of Marilyn Monroe. In 1964, Warhol rented a studio loft on East 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan which was later known as The Factory. This space became a hub that invited many people around Andy such as celebrities or other artists. Quickly fame became a part of Warhol's artist lifestyle, which even led to an attempted murder by a friend that would hang around the factory with Warhol.
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Ana Mendieta lived a different upbringing. She was born in Cuba in 1948 but was exiled to the United States as a child. She was adopted and grew up in the midwest feeling out of place. Mendieta is no stranger to trauma. Her death came early in her life in 1985 after a fight with her lover at the time, she fell out the thirty-fourth window of their loft building. Mendieta throughout her short time explored this disconnect she grew up with from her concepts of culture, identity, home, violence and gender. Mendieta often used herself and her own body as subjects in her work, making her work another level of personal looking at this artist directly. She is known for performance art but worked with photography, film, and painting. She was a graduate student for painting at the University of Iowa, where she joined the Intermedia program. This is where she began combing performance, photography, film, and conceptual art. Mendieta's work is very emotional and passionate in its concepts, and she used it as a form of deep genuine expression. She focuses on the beauty of nature and our humanity that connects us all under mother earth. Some of her most recognized work is her Silhouette series, which contains self portraits of her silhouette or other variations such as paintings or carvings of silhouettes. Many of her pieces focuses on the female body but in a unique way, she would distort herself to not adhere to typical beauty standards but instead empowering herself through the realism of human nature. The topic of a woman's body has been talked about in many ways, as discussed in Ways of Seeing “a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste - indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence” (Berger, 46). A woman's art movement as seen in Mendieta's work, has the power to alter the way we look at the female body. Mendieta's impact remains after her death through the images she made, the powerful feminist themes of the work still remain relevant to present day conversations.
Overall Mendieta and Warhol's work are visually more different than the same, but they can be compared in a few ways. Such as the everlasting presence their work has kept up to standards of modern day art. Both artists decided to break the standard of art they always knew, and by experimenting with unique styles they gained a lot of attention. We are still able to observe their works and understand the feeling and emotion behind their themes of work. They both sought inspiration from what they knew in their lives, which relates back to this quote from The Art of Self Invention, "every aspect of ordinary life engages us in this continuous transfer and inherent tension between how we act and what we think" (Finkelstein 93). You can see this in each of their works, Mendieta focusing on feminist ideas and nature which was what surrounded her thoughts and what she engaged with. And Warhol focusing on the NYC powerful pop-culture scene around him.
Works Cited
"Ana Mendieta Art, Bio, Ideas." The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/artist/mendieta-ana/.
“Andy Warhol.” Artnet, www.artnet.com/artists/andy-warhol/.
“Andy Warhol: MoMA.” The Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/artists/6246.
“Andy Warhol's Life.” The Andy Warhol Museum, www.warhol.org/andy-warhols-life/.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2008.
Finkelstein, Joanne. The Art of Self Invention: Image and Identity in Popular Visual Culture. Tauris, 2007.
Heuer, Megan. “Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance.” The Brooklyn Rail, 19 Oct. 2007, brooklynrail.org/2004/09/art/ana-mendieta-earth-body-sculpture-and-pe.
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