Ana Mendieta is a Cuban born American artist of the 1960s and 70s. The Untitled (death of a chicken) performance art is a perfect example of her work. The performance consists of Mendieta standing naked against a dirty, white backdrop, and holding up a chicken that has been beheaded immediately prior. As she holds the chicken’s body out in front of her, it continues to move and convulse spraying blood all over her body. In this piece, she works within a sociocultural context; the concept is feminism, focusing on violence against women. Mendieta’s personal aesthetic is expressed through her use of performance art as media. The intent of her work is to shock her audience and performance art is an excellent media for this purpose. Mendieta enhances its potential to shock with powerful subject matter such as large quantities of animal blood and the naked female form. Mendieta’s use of visual language within her work is also an indication of her bold personal aesthetic. Her use of a plain white background behind her during the performance contrasts with the bold red of the animal blood, enhancing the visual significance of the blood and highlighting its symbolic importance. Other than this, there is very little variety of colour or texture within the subject matter of the performance, again to enhance the impact and importance of the contrasting blood. Mendieta’s use of form is also very important, as she uses her own naked body to symbolise women and to shock the audience. Mendieta was influenced by a number of historical events such as the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959 and 1960. This historical event had a direct impact on her life and her artwork. Another significant influence of Mendieta’s work was the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s in which many artists and writers turned to feminist art and poetry as a means of expressing their beliefs.
Jenny Saville is a British artist of the late 20th and early 21st century. Torso 2, a 2004 oil on canvas painting provides an excellent example of Saville’s style of art. The painting is 3.6m x 2.94m in size and consists of an overweight, naked female torso that has had its extremities, such as head and lower arms and legs, removed. The torso is hanging from the ceiling in a similar manner to meat in a butcher. In this piece, Saville works within a sociocultural context; the concept is feminism, focusing on the way women perceive their own bodies and the way the female form is presented in the media. Saville has a very powerful personal aesthetic which is apparent in all of her art. Torso 2 is no exception. Despite the painting’s monumental size which is used both to shock the audience and highlight the concept of body size, Saville’s use of oil painting as media is also particularly significant. By using oil paints, Saville not only rebels against the 1990s movement of neo-conceptual art and the style of other popular Young British Artists of her time, she also utilises the media to create sensual depictions of human skin and flesh. Saville’s personal aesthetic is expressed mostly through her visual language. The unity and low contrast of warm and softened colours creates the sensual appearance of her paintings, which emphasises her focus of the perception of the female form. Her use of shape and size are also powerful elements of her aesthetic, filling her already monumentally sized paintings with contorted, twisted or exaggerated female forms, leaving very little negative space. This accentuates the size of her subjects and again draws back to her focus. The most important part of Saville’s personal aesthetic however is her subject matter. Saville uses overweight or obese women in her artwork to signify the issue of the perception of the female body, both to the individual and the media. This subject matter is not only symbolically significant; it also creates a shock value for her art, making it so powerful and influential. Saville’s two most powerful influences have been Francis Bacon and Willem de Kooning. As she stated that she believes, “the marriage of Bacon’s figurative skills and de Kooning’s painting skills you would make the best painter who ever lived’.Although the two artists differ greatly in their personal aesthetics, there are some cohesive links between the two. I have selected them each for their bold and shocking take on feminism of the 20th century. Mendieta’s use of the nude female form to signify violence against women compliments Saville’s use of the nude female form, although they contrast in how they have presented it. Mendieta’s almost repulsive performance art is a diverse contrast to Saville’s sensual oil paintings, however both exploit their chosen media to shock and confront their audience. Between them they create a challenging and thought provoking exhibition on the emergence of feminism which I am excited to open in March 2011.
Bibliography
Art History (2009) SDSU Art History Study Guide 3, http://arthistory.sdsu.edu/596/596_3/596_3.html (07/09/10)
Artbank (2005) Jenny Saville Biography, http://www.artbank.com/DisplayArtist.aspx?id=63, Artbank.com Ltd. (07/09/10)
Saatchi Gallery (2010) Torso 2, Jenny Saville: Contemporary Artists, http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/jenny_saville_torso.htm (07/09/10)
