VENEZUELA
Marisol Escobar
Women and Dog, Marisol Escobar, 1963-1964
The following piece was written by the Whitney Museum of American Art.
"Equal parts painting, collage, carving, and assemblage, Women and Dog was inspired by sources as diverse as its constituent materials. Marisol worked in New York during the emergence of Pop Art in the early 1960s and was one of few women associated with the movement. This sculpture reflects the fascination with everyday life that was fundamental to Pop, and yet its larger-than-life, totemic forms and the multi-faced profiles of the figures belie influences from Pre-Colombian and Native American folk art to analytic Cubism. The trio of females strolling with a child and a dog seem to suggest Marisol’s interest in social norms and conventions relating to women in society, but the composition is ambiguous. Elements of the women’s clothing are colorfully whimsical, yet they are literally “boxed in” by their garments, and their faces are marked by a deadpan impenetrability. The women, and perhaps the child too, are self-portraits—indeed, a photograph of the artist is applied directly onto the face of one of the figures—suggesting a fluid inhabitation of different female roles and identities."
Carolina Herrera
"Herrera’s debut in 1981 was something of a milestone. Not only did it announce her line, which was immediately picked up by major department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman, but it marked the end of one era in the city and the start of another. New York’s fashion landscape was shifting. The old guard who came up in the ’60s — Blass, Oscar de la Renta, Geoffrey Beene, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein — were joined by a new soon-to-be establishment, from uptown and downtown alike. Herrera was from the former, Upper East Side in ideology and geography — her headquarters were on 57th Street, within two blocks of both the Four Seasons and St. Regis hotels. Two miles south, the Andy Warhol acolyte Stephen Sprouse was starting out, designing his signature fluoro-graffitied leggings and shift dresses that became the definition of ’80s street style. Then there was the 15-year-old avant-garde favorite Andre Walker, who began selling his clothes to Patricia Field. Names like Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan and society designer Carolyne Roehm followed soon after." The New York Times Style Magazine.