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| Yosiry Beltre, Spirit of Revolution, 2024 |
The final project, "Spirit of Revolution," was inspired by Hannah Hoch's "Cut with a Kitchen Knife." It is a mixture of a watercolor self-portrait and a collage. The piece is made of two different sheets, the main one being the painting itself and the second one was a sheet of a similar size where I pasted printed portraits and made the cereal. Then I cut them all out so that the pictures didn't damage when I glued them onto the portrait. The project depicts myself eating a bowl of cereal with the cereal flakes being faces of revolutionary figures and activists I personally admire, those being: Mama Tingo (Dominican agricultural activist), Omar Al-Mukhtar (Libyan resistance leader), Gamal Abdel Nasser (2nd President of Egypt), Haile Selassie I (Emporer of Ethiopia), Faisal Bin Abdulaziz (3rd King of Saudi Arabia), Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman (1st King of Saudi Arabia), and Thomas Sankara (1st President of Burkina Faso). These people I admire because they have several things in common; they believed in anti-imperialism/colonialism, human rights, and unity. These beliefs make up not only my political beliefs but parts of my personality and the actions I take in daily life. Besides me is a cereal box with the same name as my project and contains a list, in place of nutrition labels, of governments the United States has directly or indirectly been involved in regime changes. The label itself represents how hypocritical the U.S. government is when it comes to protests and revolutions. For example, during the George Floyd protests in Baltimore, they were so quick to send police to arrest protestors but then at the same time had a long history of interfering in the government processes of other nations. Next to the labels is a "government warning", showing how the U.S. government views these "socialist/radical" ideologies as dangerous because they affect the current conservative/capitalistic structure we live under now. I think there's a huge difference between my first few selfies and the final one, the first being that my final is drawn and not a picture, but also the quality is a huge improvement and I put a lot more effort into my work.
Three quotes:
1. "This combination sparked Mutu’s reflection on the wider history of photography, colonization, and how Black and female bodies have been photographed, packaged, and consumed." - ART21 | Between the Earth and the Sky Wangechi Mutu
Connection: Although Wangechi Mutu's art focuses on the colonization of black and female bodies while I look at it through a political lens, we're both focusing on the same topic through a similar lens. Some of the figures, like Selassie and Sankara, were anti-colonialist Africans who fought it head-on.
2. "Therefore, criticism doesn’t affect me anymore. My early works were heavily criticized; now, they’re all in the most important museum collections. But at the time, if I read criticism, I couldn’t leave the house, even though I knew the work was good." - Being Marina Abramović, Even When No One’s Looking | NYTimes
Connection: I've been criticized for my political views because of how closely they resemble socialism/communism, this was especially true when I was younger and society was still under the "America is the best" spell. It has gotten better now that society has gotten more liberal but there are still naysayers.
3. "Historically, performance art has been a medium that challenges and violates borders between disciplines and genders, between private and public, and between everyday life and art, and that follows no rules." -The Case For Performance Art PBS Art Assignment
Connection: I'd like to think my art challenges certain perceptions for example, the act of "eating something up" can be seen as destructive or subscribing to a delusion. In my case though, me "eating" these activists is more about gaining knowledge and nutrients to better myself and my community.
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