One part not to miss: The Cocktail Party by Marisol Escobar. Composed of fifteen life-sized figures, wearing variations- in plaster or plastic- of Marisol’s own face, the work, the exhibit coolly demonstrates the wooden sameness of such affairs, varied only by dress and affectation. It seems so accurate that placed within the context of a real cocktail party, the guests would tend to meld with the figures, one into the other; where did The Cocktail Party leave off and the party begin?
---"The Cocktail Party," by Marisol Escobar, an assemblage of 15 free-standing figures and wall panel with painted wood, cloth, plastic, shoes, jewelry, mirror, television set and other accessories, 1965-6.---"I began to make self-portraits because working at night I had no other model. I used myself over and over again. At time making these self-portraits, I would learn about myself," Marisol was quoted in the catalogue as saying in 1968. As perhaps the most beautiful woman artist of her generation, she really did not need other models.---Read More:http://www.thecityreview.com/s05scon1.html
Marisol, of course, demolishes with a mascara brush, not with a scimitar; as a result, her inventive melange of wood, glass, fabric, paint, leather and domestic objects conveys more affectionate mockery than acidulous indignation. Little imagination is required to envision the woman with the t.v. set on her head in animated conversation with the three-faced waiter at the next party; she is describing- what else? -Marisol’s exhibition, the spectacle itself, a spectacle based on appearances, and the only thing needed to bring her vapid comments into focus is a slight adjustment of her antenna and the vertical hold knob.
---An even more contemporary work is a group of sculptures by the American artist, Marisol Escobar. Each figure in this pop assemblage, entitled Cocktail Party, represents a specific type that we might expect to see at such an occasion. An example is the smiling woman outwardly enjoying herself yet inwardly quite nervous. Marisol tells us this by showing us an “x-ray” of her acid stomach. Another cocktail party type is the woman with a “crown-like” hairdo displaying a wealth of jewels. She obviously is using the occasion to impress others. While we smile with amusement at this work and its sarcastic humor, we are visually stimulated to take a step back and look objectively at a segment of contemporary American life and our values. Through this work, Marisol asks the following questions: What is the purpose of this form of social entertainment so popular in American? Why do these people feel they have to hide behind facades? Are cocktail parties really pleasurable for anyone who attends?---Carol Calloway. Image:http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=6E1EED2B8241C78C9C9F7B6807D46F44
ADDENDUM:
“Born of Venezuelan parents in Paris, Marisol Escobar’s early artistic training was a transcontinental experience that brought her from Europe to the Jepson School in Los Angeles and then the Art Students League in New York. There, she had to opportunity to study under the tutelage of Hans Hoffman, and soon thereafter she would shed her surname Escobar in order to assume an identity distinctly her own, rather than that of her father. She quickly catapulted herself onto the New York art scene in the 1960s, armed with a precocious talent and an aura of mystery and cool chic that mesmerized her earliest admirers, but which would later became a catalyst for her critics. Even the typically laconic Andy Warhol quipped that Marisol was ‘the first girl artist with glamour.’…Morisol’s sophisticated aesthetic immediately linked her to the new Pop Art movement, but her work remained in a category of its own, displaying a myriad of influences from sources as diverse as Pre-Colombian art and Surrealist imagery. Even today, Mariosl’s art resists any linear curatorial reading.” Read More:http://www.thecityreview.com/s05scon1.html
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