Blog #5 - Text-based Artwork
Assignment...
For this entry, we had to choose an example of a text-based artwork and write three paragraphs formally analyzing and contextually explaining the piece.
Chosen artwork: Amerika Is Devouring Its Children - Jay Belloli (1994-2021)
Berkeley, California. c. 1970
First…Formally analyze the work.
This poster is 22 x 15 inches, and was printed with ink (silkscreen) on computer paper. In the composition, a direct reference to “Saturn Devouring His Son” by Francisco Goya (c. 1820–1823) is featured front and center in broken down shapes and lines following the contour of line in the original painting being referenced. The text “Amerika is devouring its children” is splayed across the cutout graphic of Goya’s painting, “Amerika is” being on the top half, and “devouring its children” on the bottom half. The ink color in this print is a gradient between blue and red, but in other prints it appears more marbled, as well as a more solid orange-red variant.
Next…Answer: why did Belloli choose to use text?
The context of this poster explains fully why Belloli chose to feature this text on his poster. Belloli made this poster in the 1970s while he was an art student at Berkeley, specifically in an art and politics seminar, shortly after Nixon and Kissinger made the decision to bomb Cambodia. Across campus at Berkeley, posters were being made and spread like wildfire as a protest against this horrific event, as well as a wave of posters coming out from other campuses. Belloli printed the poster on computer paper, as it was all he had, and made the decision not to put his name on the back as he thought this would diminish the purpose and message of the poster being political. This poster being for an anti-war movement, especially with the text chosen to be featured, explains why Belloli used text in the first place. Posters, specifically political ones, are meant to grab the eye and instantly portray a message of what they are trying to speak on. At the time this poster was made, I think it does exactly that: portray the message of how horrible war is/was, and how the United States devours its citizens into warfare. I feel like this poster can also be applied to so many other issues in our nation both in the 70s and to this day.
Here's a cool video interviewing Belloli.
Finally…Artist context.
Jay Belloli was an artist, curator, writer and from Pasadena, California. He passed away in 2021. Belloli was remembered as someone with a big heart and as a force to be reckoned with in the LA art scene. He curated and mounted “important and thought-provoking exhibitions” (cite). He also had passion exhibits in LA centered around space photography. What I find to be cool about Belloli making this poster is that he is probably an unexpected candidate to some people as someone who would make political work for an anti-war movement. Belloli is a cis and straight male, which I feel like turns people away from thinking that he would make work centered around movements such as this. A generalization of this type of work is made that only queer people or people who are marginalized minorities in general are the ones who create this sort of thing. I think Belloli being a cis straight man speaks at least a little against this stereotype. Anyone can create political art geared to whatever movement they are passionate about, and there’s tons of cis straight people who believe in more “queer and marginalized” movements, as well as the flipside of that with queer marginalized people who believe in “cis and straight” movements (I hope this makes sense. Quotes added because these are blanketed ideas of peoples’ beliefs).