Andy Warhol and Ana Mendieta

Andy Warhol and Ana Mendieta are two very interesting characters in the study and history of modern art and the question of "what is art?" They both move into the art form of absurdism where they fade the line between the possible and the impossible and the distortions they create are social statements made in their times. They do not create their art per se but they take something that is already in place and either present it in a new light or create a distorted re-imagining that redefines what the object once was.
Warhol had a difficult social life and much of his inspiration comes from his being an asocial persona for much of his early life. Even though he flourished in the field of pop art, he had very little success with love or his own personal sense of being. Warhol was always self-deprecating, especially when it came to his looks and his style so one can see why he would base the majority of his art on famous figures and brand objects because those are the things that people crave and desire.Warhol was a person who sought anonymity in fame and he did everything he could not take make his name the poster child of art. He succeeded in a way as even though a person will always know a Warhol painting, they may never know Warhol.
Mendieta, on the other hand, took her art as a form of expression and heavily pushed their meaning to the viewer. She was heavily involved in nature and the feminist movement so much of her work is reliant on that means of expression. Art such as her "siluetas" that are heavily involved in feminist thought; this is played out by by Berger in the idea that "...the authority for [the nude's] conventions [derive] from a certain tradition of art." (p. 53). she carved and painted abstract figures she named after goddesses from the Taíno and Ciboney cultures. Mendieta meant for these sculptures to be discovered by future visitors to the park, but with erosion and the area’s changing uses, they were ultimately destroyed. Like the Siluetas, these works live on only through the artist’s films and photographs, haunting documents of her ephemeral attempts to seek out. Mendieta is now heavily synonymized to her work. She is the earth-body sculptures that bring personal touches to a homeland and one's history. She also used her body to show art, like is referenced by Berger in modesty "Etiquettes of modesty are not merely puritan or sentimental: it is reasonable to recognize a loss of mystery." (p. 59)
For this week's class I created a selfie in the style of Ana Mendieta, specifically, her untitled set that was her pressed against glass to distort her image.

Untitled

Citations:

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. BBC, 2008.

“Ana Mendieta.” Guggenheim, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/ana-mendieta.

“Andy Warhol Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works.” The Art Story, The Art Story, www.theartstory.org/artist-warhol-andy-artworks.htm.

“Art and Archives.” The Andy Warhol Museum, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburg, www.warhol.org/art-and-archives/.