Scott King characterized his work as being ‘about the commodification of once meaningful imagery and gestures… It’s about the failure of the left‘. He confirms that ‘Cher Guevara' (as the original print was titled) 'is a clear and simple illustration of that position'.
Avant Garde Art and Russian Revolution
The idea of Revolution and struggle for better society has come a long way between the avant-gardist idealism of the turn of the twentieth century and the cynicism at the turn of the next century. The ideals of the left became an important driving force of the avant-garde art in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The reintegration of art and life was to be a major contribution of avant-garde artists to the wider effort for transformation of the society as a whole.
Leon Trotsky on Art
Some scholars and thinkers of the period, however enthusiastic about the change, doubted society's readiness for such a radical shake-up. In his writings on the role of art, Leon Trotsky sounds cautiously sceptical about plausibility of the idea of any significant change under the circumstances of that period. He argued that ‘...between our present-day economic and cultural poverty and the time of the fusion of art with life, that is, between the time when life will reach such proportions that it will be entirely formed by art, more than one generation will have come and gone.‘
Che Guevara's Image
It seems that despite various attempts by politicized art to change society that followed the Russian Revolution, Trotsky’s statement has carried its validity to the beginning of the 21st-century and Scot King’s work suggests that although the society has advanced economically and culturally, the scepticism remains.
Pink Cher is a screenprint and paint on canvas, 300 x 200 cm. It is a portrait of pop star Cher styled as the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. King used one of the merchandise incarnations of the iconic photograph of Che by Alberto Korda as a template. Korda’s original photograph became modified and its best known version is the black print of Che’s portrait on a bright coloured background, usually red. King imposed Cher’s face into the portrait and changed the conventional red background for fluorescent pink.
Pink Cher or Cher Guevara Display in The Saatchi Gallery
At the moment the work is on exhibited at The Saatchi Gallery where it is prominently displayed in the room located opposite the main entrance. Visitors can see the work immediately as they proceed from the entrance via a narrow corridor leading to the exhibition rooms. Its position, huge dimensions and strong colours demand immediate attention.
The very fact that the work is exhibited in a fashionable gallery of contemporary art whose previous showing artists now command huge sums for their work, is a kind of paradox considering King’s intention behind the work.
Pink Cher and Andy Warhol's Celebrity Portraits
Pink Cher is very much reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s celebrity portraits from the 1960s. In the portraits of Castro, Mao, or Nixon, Warhol manipulated their identity as public figures by adding patches of bright colours suggestive of make-up, thus undermining their authority as statesmen. Similar ironic quality can be seen in Pink Cher where a female pop star is presented as a male guerrilla fighter which undermines the idea of radical opposition.
Contemporary Art as Satire on Mass Media and Consumerist Culture
Warhol’s art was not political but was influenced by the expanding post-war market economy. Like Warhol, King embraces the consumerist culture but with a critical twist. His Pink Cher is a reflection on contemporary art as a part of art market where artists play along with mass media culture obsessed with celebrities to highlight its contradictions by means of irony. The iconic image of Che Guevara had become a commercialized mass media object and in King’s paining the ideals of revolutionary struggle are presented as a commodity of mass culture.
For more information on Scott King and his work you can go here.
Sources:
- Edwards, Steve and Wood, Paul (ed.), Art of the Avant-Gardes, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2004
- Gaiger, Jason (ed.), Frameworks of Modern Art, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2003
- Gaiger, Jason and Wood, Paul (ed.), Art of the Twentieth Century: A Reader, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2003
- Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul (ed.), Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2003
- Perry, Gill and Wood, Paul (ed.), Themes in Contemporary Art, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2004
- Wood, Paul (ed.), Varieties of Modernism, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 2004
Zuzana Minarikova - I live in London and work in publishing in Bloomsbury which is an exciting part of London, full of museums, galleries, bookshops and ...
