Artist Presentation 4: Ana Mendieta

"Imagen de Yagul"

"Silueta" Series

Ana Mendieta was exiled from Cuba as a teenager and thereby separated from her family. This dislocation caused her to be moved from orphanages to foster homes for years in Iowa. This dislocation from her roots caused a serious wound to her, creating a sense of isolation. Her work can be considered "violent, ritualistic, and ephemeral." Her art has been strongly influenced from a source within her that wants to be reunited with her Cuban past, but also wants to integrate her past with the American values she has been exposed to during her upbringing. Her sculptures have a very ephemeral nature to them. They possess the ability to mark the presence and absence of her body on the landscape. The purpose behind her work is very private and ritualistic, but at the same time the video documentations of her performances throw her work into the public sphere.

I was drawn to Mendieta's work because she used her body in order to express herself personally and socially. She challenged idealized traditions of the female body being passive. By establishing a dialogue between landscape and the female body, she was able to demonstrate how the latter is a source of life and sexuality. From 1973 to 1980 Mendieta created her "Silueta" series where she combined herself with natural materials. By working within the scale of her own small body she provided an alternative to the monumental view of male land and earthwork artists of the seventies, who even used bulldozers to create sculptures out of the earth. Even though her work seems to show a tendency toward feminism she was still aware of the fact that most feminists were white and of the middle class with little understanding of third world women. Therefore, Ana Mendieta's work did not fit neatly into any specific category of art taking place during her time.

Natural elements such as grass, mud, flowers, and trees captured Mendieta's attention, she was also drawn to another natural element: blood. The violent rape and murder of a fellow student on the campus of the University of Iowa in March, 1973 was a catalyst for some of her early performance pieces which used blood as a medium. Mendieta's performances were her "'reaction against the idea of violence against women.'" Mendieta described blood as "a very powerful magical thing." In "Body Tracks" her actions are hypnotic and her use of blood lends her the qualties of a shamanic priestess.

Artist Presentation 3: Fran Herbello

"liguero"

"In Our Own Likeness"

I was originally drawn to Fran Herbello's work because I like the way he merges aspects of masculinity and femininity. The photographs in his exhibit, "In Our Own Likeness," show how the body is objectified not just because it is the subject presented to the viewer, but because the body parts themselves have been turned into everyday objects. In his photograph "liguero," Herbello takes the associations we have with the garter belt being a sexy, feminine object and turns it around completely by placing it on a man and making it seem as if it is holding up the hair on his legs instead of stockings. As the viewer, we are tricked into thinking we are seeing a melted candle when in fact it is a human ear with a light coming from it, in the photograph "vela." His work is disturbing, yet fascinating at the same time because it is hard to distinguish what is truthful from what has been created.

Fran Herbello breaks the usual way of seeing the familiar and documents this with seemingly scientific black and white photos. He is interested in restructuring identity and self-analysis in a society which has been altered by the influence of digital technology. His art can be deemed sculptural as well as photographic. It seems that the authenticity of the digital image is constantly being questioned but Manuel Sendon, the writer of the review for The Alternative Museum says, "Little does it matter if the scar in the image of the backs was created by Photoshop...or as a result of the search for a person who possessed such a scar in real life. What matters, is not the process followed but the result obtained and the underlying concept."

Herbello's work is reminiscent of a lot of Man Ray's surrealist photography. "Corse" reminds me of a photograph that has been taken of someone who has had body modification. Therefore, to me, it is not as shocking as the other photographs because it is something I have seen before. Yet, placing it with these other pieces makes me think of it as more abnormal while still causing me to question whether or not people will start changing their bodies in the same fashion that is depicted in the other photographs.

"Corse"

Artist Presentation 2: M. River & T. Whid Art Associates

"Our Political Work"

"Five Small Videos About Interruption and Disappearing"

MTAA (M. River & T. Whid Art Associates) is a conceptual and net art collaboration based in Brooklyn, New York. They do performances which are played out on the internet, in installations, through print media, documentation, and other mediums. They use aspects of conceptual art, popular culture, and performance in order to create a different dialogue with the viewer.
"Five Small Videos About Interruption and Disappearing," were commissioned by The Alternative Museum. It is a work inspired by early video performance work where the artists were intrigued by repetitive actions and everyday gestures. The first video is called "Sliding Compression" where the artists look away from the viewer, towards the viewer, and to the side, while smiling and blinking. Their expressions are hard to read, they look as if they are almost annoyed, but they also look as if they are in deep thought or contemplation. The second video, "On Then Off," is interesting because the viewer has some control of the artist. When "on" is pressed then T. Whid appears and reaches over the screen hitting the "off" button. The same holds true for the video "Lights On, Lights Off." M. River is asleep, but when you turn the lights on he awakes confused. These videos show the repetitiveness of everyday actions, but they also display how people can control each other in little ways.
I was specifically intrigued by these videos because they are process oriented, but also interactive."Our Political Work" was a process because the artists had to do continuous moments of screaming and laughing. This video is made from 141 filmed moments. What most people try to hide, these artists throw out there. The videos of interruption and disappearing need a viewer to be fully appreciated. Someone must be there turning the lights on and off to see the complication.