The art of coping

Jada Cox


10/6/19


Intro to Art Culture Media


Paper 1


The Art of Coping


Ana Mendieta and Andy Warhol had many things in common when it came to their art, they were both full of self-expression that stemmed from their childhood lives. But, the one thing that ran through every single one of their works was the art of coping. Both Warhol and Mendieta went through different things in their lives that they later on utilized in their art to help them cope and understand what happened and maybe even to help the world understand them better.








Ana Mendieta Andy Warhol


To understand both Warhol and Mendieta’s artwork we must first understand their childhood. Mendieta grew up until the age of 12 in Havana, Cube, “As the Mendieta family grew increasingly concerned over the future of their country, they decided to send their children to the United States under the auspices of Operation Peter Pan. On September 11, 1961 Ana, 12, and her sister Rauqel, 15, arrived at Miami International airport, but unlike many of the other children sent to the United States, the Mendieta sisters had no family there. After spending their first few weeks in refugee camps, they were sent to Dubuque, Iowa, where they moved from orphanage to foster home to orphanage.” (Cabañas "Ana Mendieta: "Pain of Cuba, Body I Am"” 1999). Once Ana started school the pain didn't stop there, since the civil rights movement had just ended racial tension was high. Ana was demoralized due to the color of her skin and called racial slurs all throughout her school years. Even though Ana was painting before she went off to college once she got to college she found her true style, a real outlet for people to truly understand her, she was able to connect her body to the artwork and this is when she was able to connect the motherland to her outwork.


Then there is Andy Warhol, even though Mendieta and Warhol have different stories they both struggled during their childhood. One of the reasons Warhol and his family struggled throughout his childhood was due to his parents being immigrants from Slovakia. Warhol was poor all of his childhood, eating almost the same foods everyday, campbell's soup, Kellogg's Corn flakes, and occasionally chocolate that he enjoyed putting between two pieces of bread, and calling it cake. (Nickas "A History of Andy Warhol's Relationship With Food-Including That Weird Schrafft's Commercial" 2012). Warhol also got extremely sick when he was younger, making him bed ridden which caused him to be homeschooled by his mother, “At the age of eight, Warhol contracted Chorea — also known as St. Vitus's Dance — a rare and sometimes fatal disease of the nervous system that left him bedridden for several months. It was during these months, while Warhol was sick in bed, that his mother, herself a skillful artist, gave him his first drawing lessons. Drawing soon became Warhol's favorite childhood pastime. He was also an avid fan of the movies, and when his mother bought him a camera at the age of nine, he took up photography as well, developing film in a makeshift darkroom he set up in their basement.” (Biography.com Editors "Andy Warhol" 2019). This is where Warhol’s love of art grew, on top of that his family went to church regularly which later on had an influence on the way chose to showcase colors.





Silueta Series Andy Warhol. Campbell’s Soup Can. 1962


Both Mendieta and Warhol art is based on self-identity. Based on Mendieta’s life she was using her art to strip herself of titles and also at the same time define who she wants the world to see her as. “We habitually define and invent ourselves in exigencies of the moment.”(Finklestein, The Art of Self Invention). Since Mendieta was forced to move out of Cuba her identity was questioned and thrown in her face by everyone, no matter the gender or race. “The paint cannot free itself of its original propensity to procure the tangible for the immediate pleasure of the owner.” (Finklestein, The Art of Self Invention) Mendieta was aware that she could not control what people saw in her, but she could make them think once they saw it. She called out those judgements on the female body and on a person's identity and set it on fire, literally. Warhol also knew this way about art. Warhol’s identity was never threatened, but he had to normalize his identity. Warhol was poor as a kid and never had much of anything so to make that normal for himself and society he normalized his daily life as a child. He turned kellogs cereal into art, a banana into an album cover, a can of soup he ate for 20 years into a pop art masterpiece. Warhol used his art to cope with the feeling of being nothing as a child. Finklestein’s, The Art of Self Invention explains perfectly what Warhol was doing with his art, “If you buy a painting you buy also the look of the thing it represents.” Warhol made it okay to be poor and struggling, he made it okay to eat the same meal because your parents could afford. Warhol understood if people buy the can of soup pop art they are not only buying Warhol, they are buying the soup, they are also buying every child’s struggle and dream who went through a childhood like warhol.


Both Mendieta and Warhol in some part of their childhood had a large amount of their identity taken from them or thrown directly in their faces. They both understood this theory of self identity and made it okay to lose it as in Mendieta’s case or to accept it with open arms as in Warhol’s case.





Silueta Series Untitled(Glass on Face)





Work Cited:


Cabañas, Kaira M. “Ana Mendieta: ‘Pain of Cuba, Body I Am.’” Woman's Art Journal, Woman's Art Inc., 1 Apr. 1999, www.jstor.org/stable/1358840?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

Nickas, Bob. “A History of Andy Warhol's Relationship With Food-Including That Weird Schrafft's Commercial.” Slate Magazine, The Slate Group, 3 July 2012, slate.com/human-interest/2012/07/somebody-has-to-bring-home-the-bacon-a-history-of-andy-warhols-relationship-with-food-from-lucky-peach.html.