Mestizaje New Beginnings Series
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description
This series is an ongoing project that I plan to complete by the end of 2015. Thirty pieces in all, that represent the various missions, presidios and pueblos of Alta California.
Transcript of Mestizaje New Beginnings Series
Mestizaje New Beginnings Installation Series
By John Eden
Judy Chicago’s 1964 Car hood paintings Like my Roundel (military aircraft insignia) series that explored topical issues that were influenced by Judy Chicago’s feminist car-hoods paintings and more generally by Finish Fetish/Light n’ Space/California's Aerospace connections, my new Mestizaje series also explores topical issues. I have always felt that Billy Al Bengston’s most influential work was his late 60’s “Dento” series with its iconic Master Sergeant strips during the Vietnam era.
Billy Al Bengston’s Dento painting and John Eden’s Roundel series 2012-2013 So with those disparate conceptual elements in mind, I set out to create a new series that addresses our changing demographics and its Spanish colonial beginnings in our particular Southern California art vernacular.
John Eden, "Misión San Luis Rey de Francia (1798) #18” and “Misión San Gabriel Arcangel (1771) #4” from the “Mestizaje New Beginnings” Installation Series. Two shields are completed (2014) and twenty-eight more are in progress. 18”H. X 13.25”W. X 3”D. Automotive Metal Flake on Rolled Steel Plate. The entire series is dedicated to both Father Serras, Richard Serra (the younger) and Junípero Serra (the elder). In this series, my use of the Santiago Cross motif comes from artist Diego Velázquez’s 1656 famous painting titled Las Meninas, as the dagger-shaped cruciform appears on the artist's tunic in that painting and was originally used by the Spanish monarchy during the Reconquista period. I plan to make 30 metal wall reliefs in this installation series exactly alike except that the metal flake colors will be tailored for the different locations they represent. Each shield will be titled for each individual Alta California Mission, Presidio and Pueblo. I have employed two very different Southern California art vernaculars and the same structural elements in each piece to reference both Claude Monet & Andy Warhol’s use of serial imagery and the mixing of disparate forms. The entire grouping will be hung in a public installation setting to memorialize California’s mestizaje* beginnings and commemorates its neo-mestizaje reality. When California painters like John McLaughlin and Karl Benjamin refused to go east to further their careers early on, they were saying to the world; I have everything I need, right here (in Southern California) to make my art, I don’t need to move anywhere. Thereby illustrating what visionaries they were back in the late 40’s and early 50’s. They were thinking globally as urbane world-citizens back then and that in a nutshell is what I think California continues to offer its artists. *My use of the word mestizaje refers to racial and/or cultural mixing of all peoples from around the world. www.johneden.org [email protected]
Mestizaje / New Beginnings Installation Series Alta California Mission System (30 sites)
1. El Presidio Reál de San Diego (1769) 2. Misión San Diego de Alcala (1769) #1 3. El Pueblo de San Diego 4. Misión San Luis Rey de Francia (1798) #18 5. Misión San Juan Capistrano (1776) #7 6. El Pueblo de Los Ángeles (1781) 7. Misión San Gabriel Arcangel (1771) #4 8. Misión San Fernando Rey de Espana (1797) #17 9. Misión San Buenaventura (1782) #9 10. El Presidio Reál de Santa Bárbara (1782) 11. Misión de Santa Barbara (1786) #10 12. El Pueblo de Santa Barbara 13. Misión Santa Ines (1804) #19 14. Misión La Purisima Concepcion (1787) #11 15. Misión San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (1772) #5 16. Misión San Miguel Arcangel (1797) #16 17. Misión San Antonio de Padua (1771) #3 18. Misión Nuestra Senora de la Soledad (1791) #13 19. Misión San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1770) #2 20. El Presidio Reál de Monterey (1770) 21. Misión San Juan Bautista (1797) #15 22. Misión Santa Cruz (1791) #12 23. Misión Santa Clara de Asis (1777) #8 24. Misión San Jose (1797) #14 25. El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe (1777) 26. Misión San Francisco de Asis (1776) #6 27. El Presidio Reál de San Francisco (1776) 28. El Pueblo de San Francisco (1834) 29. Misión San Rafael (1817) #20 30. Misión San Francisco de Solano (1823) #21
