Writing, Images, and Pop Culture Overanalysis by Elizabeth Grammaticas
Revised a problematic piece that’s been sitting around for a while. “I wasn’t alive but I remember”. Mixed Media on Panel. 2012.
This piece will be on display at Fowler Art in Brooklyn for the upcoming show Space Half Empty, opening this Friday, June 15th. Reception 7-10
Also I will be participating in the Northside Art Festival Open Studios this Sunday. Come visit my Greenpoint studio in person and say hello! If you get there early, I may even kitsch it up and serve some Marilyn wine.
I tried to do a Jackie-a-day, I really didt…but I couldn’t. It wasn’t because of my work ethic, although I questioned it. It was my interest level. Jackie sounded great on paper, but not in practice. (I know, that’s a set up for some JFK jokes, but refrain)
I was a bit surprised that Jackie didn’t draw me in as I had hoped. I went into working with Marilyn Monroe’s image having no interest, and seeing no personal indentifications between the two of us…yet here we are, years later…and I am still fascinated by Miss Monroe and continuously being drawn in on am emotional level. While Jackie O. holds much more in common with the people in my own life, I quickly grew bored and detached, which you could see in the work. The drawings and paintings never quite looked like Jackie, and slightly looked like my mother when she was young..or other female members of my family. That’s you get with an icon I guess, but you need something more than just a slight personal touch. Jackie would give me props for knowing when its time to step away….you know..before the point when you have to move to a private Greek island with a rich old man. We part ways for now Jackie, but maybe we’ll talk later.
Sorry Jackie...
More to come on the projects I actually have been working on.
One of the Jackie’s from this week.
Jackie-a-Day, 3/23/11
Years back when I first started working with Marilyn Monroe’s image, the Marilyn’s I initially produced were drastically different from my current Marilyn work. The early Marilyns were aggressive and somewhat grotesque. I knew little about Marilyn outside from her commercial marketing. Then I started my research…and I am still reading new Marilyn books and evolving a relationship and interest in the subject. While this transformation happened, my regret is that I didn’t further document this process and evolution. I do have some snitbits here:
Now I have decided to start a new project with another iconic American lady from a similar historical period. Appropriately, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onasis. For the next month, I will be doing a Jackie drawing a day…and documenting my progress. I have more up front personal connections with Jackie, and I am curious to see how this work/and relationship will evolve. Plus you know, I currently live in Boston…might as well.
Here’s some starters:
Day 1
Jackie 2, (part 1)
Jackie 2 (part 2)
3/19/11
stay tuned……..
Current work in progress: Study of Marilyn at JFK Birthday Gala.
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I have a tendency to want to ignore images/media/people that are culturally over-saturated. I am aware this can be just as bad as liking something just because everyone else does. I am working on this problem, to the point where I end up challenging myself to like something, or least understand whether my aversion is legitimate or not…and what my reasons for said aversion actually are. Such previous high-class examples are The Girls Next Door, Hannah Montana, and honestly, Beverly Hills 90210. Plus, life is much easier when you can find interest in the things you see everywhere. This is also part of my reason for loving John Waters so much. His life’s work is an extreme version of this; he takes the lowest of society and finds passion and interest within. Ridiculous as this may be, I find this to be a valuable life s
kill.
Due to the aforementioned reasons, for a while I could not pay much attention to Pop Art. I’d fine it aesthetically pleasing, but after seeing endless Warhol prints on just about anything, it becomes hard to look at it objectively. I avoided an in depth look at pop art for some time, but my current bodies of work have forced me to change this stance.
Warhol's Marilyns
There’s the blatantly obvious, Marilyn Monroe. Warhol’s portraits of Monroe, along with Jackie Kennedy, Judy Garland, and other tragic golden ladies, allude to the pain and identification with the individuals, but with a firm level of removal. It’s not exactly easy to put oneself in the same category as Marilyn Monroe etc, despite the humanity of these icons. They are still icons, unattainable but we are still able to project our own associations.
Roy Lichtenstein’s Crying Girls series is drawn from distressed females in comics books, thus making the pain of these both anonymous and universal. Lichtenstein paints these modified comic panel pieces as individual images, and by taking out of the context he changes the meaning. We are given very select clues on how and why these ladies are distressed. Richard Prince demonstrated this point with his artist book, pairing up Lichtenstein’s girls with pulp-lady novel covers, completely redirecting the interpretation of said images even more.
Lichtenstein Crying Girl
With my Beverly Hills, 90210/Teen Trauma body of work, I am finding myself straddled between these two ends of the spectrum. Brenda Walsh is a fictional tv character, yet the actress and the show are fairly recognizable. At least, to the general public more identifiable than the specific ladies of Lichtenstein, but no where as epically recognizable as Jackie Kennedy or Marilyn Monroe. While most of can identify with some Monroean tragedy, distraught comic beautiful blonds, but it is Brenda Walsh that we see ourselves in. She’s imperfect, she’s loved, she’s hated. We can relive her ups and downs, break-ups and betrayals…..and she cries enough about life for all of us. Brenda Walsh’s pain is our modern middle ground.
Brenda Walsh
(Also, just for fun. Let’s look at Britney Spears shaving her head again. )
So most people know I have had my head caught up in the likes of Marilyn Monroe for quite some time now. The basic research is seeking a better understanding of this woman’s impact within her life-time, as well as after….and in general, how and why people respond to her so strongly. After reaching a certain depth within research, it’s hard to ignore some of the other hugely culturally significant ladies…such as Ms Jacqueline (Bouvier) Kennedy (Onasis).
We know the basics of the story. Jackie Kennedy (& that Bostonian husband of hers) changed the face of the White House and America’s image in the early 1960s. In 1962, Jackie’s infamous televised broadcast A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F Kennedy aired internationally…and impacted generations globally within their very own homes. With it’s initial airing, 56 million American’s tuned in to see the stylish First Lady give a public tour of her private/public home/museum. In addition, the tour was then syndicated to over 50 countries. Jackie revamped how we see our country,our history, the role of First Lady, as well as the changing role of women in the private and public spheres.
In 2008, “A Tour of the White House” came back into the homes and TVs of Americans once more,…. as well as through computers, dvd players and probably some ipods. This time is wasn’t the full hour-long broadcast, but clips via the characters’ TVs of AMC’s hit series Mad Men. We see Sal, closet gay ad artman, watching the tour with his wife while quietly sitting on their couch. Meanwhile Joan, the saucy Monroe-Jackie combo, is attempting to watch the tour while engaging in a steamy make-out session with her beau. The show’s main couple, Betty & Don have a failed lovemaking attempt on Valentines day. After they give up, they order room service and watch the Kennedy White House tour from the bed of their hotel room. We see these various couples’ degrees of sex and lack there of, intertwined together by the fact that Jacqueline Kennedy is giving a tour of the White House on all of their TV sets.
Sal & His Wife, Mad Men Season 2
If 3/4 of the country was watching this broadcast in 62, then Mad Men is pretty dead on with the fact that Joan, Betty & Don, Sal & his wife all probably would have been watching Ms Kennedy. Sure, we’ve got that other 1/4…but those were probably just the characters we didn’t see. Now thanks to Mad Men, the broadcast familiar once more, but with younger generations. Folks who didn’t get to watch the original broadcast when it aired (for whatever reasons, such as…not being born) now watched the characters watch and react to this iconic broadcast. Folks who did watch the original broadcast, now relived a moment in ’62 that they all connected to.
The Drapers
Joan & Her New Beau
In 2010, it’s impossible for one form of media to have as a great impact as specific televised broadcasts had when Mrs. Kennedy was First Lady. Three damn quarters of the country…using the same appliance, at the same time, watching the same formal televised broadcast. It wasn’t because it was a national state of emergency, or the end of a pivotal presidential election. It also wasn’t a scandalous interview with one of the worlds most iconic and reclusive pop stars. It was a beautiful yet quirky, elegant yet mechanical well-bred woman from the New England/New York social circles, giving the interviewer, the camera, and the country a formal tour of her home/museum/ideal image.
I did a couple of performances recently for the first time in ages. I am getting my Beverly Hills, 90210 body of work rolling, and along with it comes a cultural fascination with TV. I really haven’t done much performance in a gallery type setting, and finally had some opportunities to try it out. Q: Why the media of performance? A: Because other medias aren’t as applicable for conveying the desired result. The Kennedy White House Tour, as it existed in 1962 is clearly impossible almost 40 years later. We have too many forms of media, outlets, and accessible information as a whole. So why not just avoid the media battle, and give the White House Tour as Jackie herself? Maybe by having an interactive, one-on-one personal encounter with the Mrs. Kennedy and her tour of the White House….Mrs. Kennedy’s White House tour can still make a lasting impact on people’s cluttered memories.
@ the Cannytrophic Design Expo 2010, courtesy of Stripy Cat
At the Cannytrophic Design Expo earlier this year, I tried to put this into practice. I was Jackie. I had my Mid-restoration White House. I had my objects to show. Sometimes I had tours. A lot of the time people kept walking. …and then after 6 hours Jackie got tired. Clearly, it is not 1962…but at least these folks will probably remember that quirky Jackie trying to give some Whitehouse Tours in the corner of a gallery.
