Ana Mendieta and Andy Warhol were both two of the most legendary artists of the time. Both turned to internal battles they faced in order to portray what they felt into the art world. They used very unconventional methods in their art forms and they made sure to leave a shocking after effect on the people who followed their art. Mendieta was very in tune with showing the abuse and disrespect women faced on a daily but also in university/ campus life. She would use animal blood to make sure that people who saw her performances knew she was serious about what she was talking about and her feelings towards everything she says in regards to the mistreatment of women. She was very active in making sure her art reflected everything she wanted to speak on, including the way she did things using the Earth. She would create basically crime scenes in which she would fill them with water and other natural materials. The basis behind this was to show her different direction or different view on what she was trying to say about death.
The biggest irony as some would say was her tragic death stemmed from a very abusive relationship. “Original paintings are silent and still in a sense that information never is,”(Berger, 31) What Berger was trying to say was that although you just see paintings, they have this voice that you are able to interpret and use to form your own opinion. It seemed as though throughout her art work she was sending a definite and deeper meaning to her work and how she felt about a lot of things occurring. Mendieta was showing the truth of rape and sexual assault in her work and her silent yet loud painting exhibits and performances she did in class. In a way her art projected the ideas that she was going through but also allowed for her to displace her emotions by portraying them in her very individualistic style of artwork.
Her style was to use nature and things that were very accessible to anyone in a way. In my opinion, I think that she was trying to tell a mini story saying that illegal acts of rape and abuse and such can happen to anyone. The 15 words I chose to describe her contributed to my view of how strong and resilient she was as an individual and how you can see it all in her artwork.
Warhol was very in tune with his own ideas of what he thought was very normal. He chose to do certain art pieces because of the way he viewed the world. He broke out of the art norm in NY by using bold colors and doing very normal yet not basic works of art. When Group 1(my group) did our project, we chose to do certain works that made him stand out and gain his ultimate fame. He died being so well known that his grave now has a 24 hour live feed in order to maintain what he truly sought in regards to fame.
Warhol was very unique in his art form. He began to paint with fluorescent colors and then screen-print on top of his artwork. Warhol worked into the surface with paint to create the impression of movement. “When we "see" a landscape, we situate ourselves in it. If we "saw’ the art of the past, we would situate ourselves in history.”(Berger, 11) He was notorious for doing this because he used everyday things and habits he did in order to find inspiration for certain things. When he did his Campbell soup series, it was because he had eaten soup for about 20 years as a habit and it was something just created to decorate a place in his house. He was also very good at choosing everyday things like the Brillo pads and just making them unique art pieces.
One of my favorite things was when Warhol photographed the boxer, Muhammad Ali, in 1977 as part of his 'Athletes' series. He was very unfamiliar with the sports but he was in love with the obsession with fame, and he loved the idea that they were just as famous as him. “I said that the athletes were better than movie stars and I don’t know what I’m talking about because athletes are the new movie stars” (A. Warhol, quoted in Andy Warhol: The Athlete Series, exh. cat., London, 2007, p. 76). In each screen print, Ali’s features are dramatized such as; his eyes alert as he readies for a fight and his clenched fist showing aggression and power.
Warhol and Mendieta were both very critical in the art world in breaking stereotypes and creating new forms of art that allowed for new voices to be heard and new art forms to take place. They created a movement based on displaying their personal life and showing the need for people to understand the normal lives they held in regards to things happening to anyone.
Works Cited
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.
Warhol, Andy. Andy Warhol: The Athlete Series, exh. cat., London, 2007.
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