Drive- thru salvation and other marketing strategies

Yesterday On my way out of the local market I encountered an interesting sight. Several young girls wearing shorts on the side of the street holding big signs that read: “ Cristo Salva, oramos por ti, Servi- Carro” (Christ saves, we pray for you, drive-thru.) I found it curious how this church has borrowed an idea that is common practice for fast food chains. After a brief Google search I found out that even the Catholic Church and other churches in the United States have “Drive-in” prayer locations.  Someone might say it is quite acceptable to have this sort of thing in a car culture society and he or she is probably right. But if Christianity adopts the strategies of the corporate world then it should be of no controversy that I may have in my work a dialogue between Christianity and Consumerism. Living in an island with so many car dealers right next to other commercial lots rented or bought by churches brought me to the conclusion that marketing strategies can work for almost every institution today. 

 Church in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico that looks more like a store. The sign reads: “Blessed Church invested with power”

I’ve noticed that many of these new churches spread out across the country are almost undistinguishable from other type of businesses just by looking at their front window. After all, many of these churches offer “service” as they call it to their parishioners, a different type of consumers, religious consumers.  I also understand how some people may feel offended by this that I’m saying because they see religious practice as a sacred realm that should be vertically above everything else in society. This might have been true when the church was built in the center of a Latin American colonial city like Antigua, Guatemala. The Medieval gothic cathedral in many European towns is still the tallest building in town.  Architecture and Urban planning often reveal the priorities of a society. 

 Main Cathedral in Antigua Guatemala

Now compare both of these pictures above. We may be aware that there is a huge difference between Catholicism and other protestant denominations. But what happened with the way many Christian churches are built in a consumerist age? They had to compete so they got their own TV channels, logos and brands, relocated in malls and commercial lots and now they also offer fast food drive-thru salvation. They became another consumer commodity. Faith has been reduced to a mass produced merchandise displayed on multiple horizontal shelves to be compared with one another, bought and consumed. Of course it is sad to see how a consumerist society has reshaped religion to its own image.  

Panis Beatus (Holy bread) 15” x 23” Oil on wood (2006) by Patrick McGrath Muñiz

The same marketing and consumer rules apply to everything even politics. This was self evident with the political campaign lead by our now present Barack Obama with his very effective use of the web. The emblematic circle with the sun rising from the horizon logo that reads “Hope” or “Change” was another strategy borrowed from the corporate realm. Politics has also been branded , repackaged and sold in the same way as religion.

      

Obama political campaign imagery remitted to old revolutionary “Che” propaganda. Both icons have been massively appropriated for t-shirts and other consumer items ultimately transforming the meaning of the figure. This kind of straightfoward bold image has proved to have a special appeal iwith the masses

Now, what about history and mythology? I recently went to see the movie “Clash of the Titans” a remake of Desmond Davis 1981 classic film. Rebranded, repackaged and sold once more but as a total disaster of the titans. If you thought the old version was far removed from the original narrative, this latest version didn’t even look like classical mythology at all. It was deprived of real content, humanism or any transcendental message or lesson present in the original myth. The film is made for the senses, all about cool special effects to capture the eye not our mind. 

Poster image for the 2010 remake film "Clash of the Titans"

The reason for this may well be the same reason why today logos and brands are even more important that the product itself. In Naomi Klein’s book “No Logo”, the author illustrates successfully how corporations have become increasingly more involved in marketing their logos and brands than even more than their products.  Production has gone to the side and now goods are manufactured in sweat shops in China, Indonesia or El Salvador. It is irrelevant how it’s made and under what conditions. What matters is the “cool” aspect of it, the label and the brand.  We have become more and more seduced by the appearance of things than by its content. This must be perhaps the golden age for graphic designers as advertisement has outgrown what it sells. In the same way this affects the arts, literature and film. It is not important how true you are to the story or how good the story is as long as it has a “sex appeal” and it sells. In order to sell have an eye catching cover or poster and a sexy subject and you are a star, an artist. Content is disposable, make it seem nice, sexy and appealing to the masses. This is why a colorful corny movie like Scooby Doo has better success at the box office than a lesser known brilliant film like Amenabar’s Agora. After all, most people go to movie theaters to have fun, not to think or learn to think.

Magna Regina (Great Queen) 24” x 25” Oil and gold leaf on wood (2007) by Patrick McGrath Muniz

Real history and Mythology are irrelevant to the masses today and this is quite convenient for established religious and political institutions to maintain their power. If people don’t know their history they will not question the status quo the wonder and why history repeats itself again and again. If people don’t learn about mythology they will never know that their religions derive in great part from mythology. Also what we often call mythology today used to be religion yesterday. In the same way religion today will someday in the future become mythology. When one learns from the past, one becomes aware of what really happens today and others can’t see. One can see hidden connections that most will oversee or refuse to see. As the world becomes more globalized we will see more fast food religions pop up, more consumer goods, more distractions, and more “fast” “sexy” “fun” “Have it your way” products everywhere to make us all happy. The perfect drug for an amnesic society that rarely sees what we are doing to the planet rarely sees the consequences of their actions and that just cares about the moment.

 The Visit 36" x 36" Oil on canvas (2008) by Patrick McGrath Muñiz

It might be a good idea then to establish a drive-in with consciousness. Prayers are good but they seem worthless without proper action. Instead of prayer, send a message quoting history and about our future and what we should do to start changing old patterns and become better citizens of the world.  Good art can do this! Great masterpieces from the past transcend because of this quality.  They can be understood in different ways by different generations. By reading the classics and being exposed to great paintings, we start seeing ourselves and the world around us in a different light.  This would be crucial in order to start making changes in the way we live and consume. But then again a transcendental message in art takes time to read and be understood and no one has time for it in a “fast” “sexy” “fun” car culture society.  Instead why don’t we  drive-thru at  well known fast food place, “have it your way!” and order some blessings with some prayers on the side?

All text on this blog is  copyrighted material© by the artist and author Patrick McGrath Muñiz

From Paganism to Consumerism: Exploring Syncretisms in Art

I’ve just noticed something quite curious looking through my last four art journals. I felt compelled to write about it and at the same time share my findings in my blog. Page after page my art journals are filled with a persistent interest in finding correspondence in many philosophical systems. Why has this occupied such an important part of my art practice? Many things have influenced this persistent thought and activity. I could certainly trace it back to the time when I was working on my M.F.A. thesis at Savannah College of Art and Design.

   At my studio in Alexander Hall, SCAD 2004

While at school I asked myself some serious questions about my cultural heritage and upbringing. Who am I?  What are my origins? What makes me different? These are profound, sometimes traumatic but crucial questions every artist must ask him or herself. I found myself between two worlds: Embedded in my veins is a mixed cultural heritage half Irish American and half Puerto Rican Even and even though I’m aware of these influences, I do not allow this cultural identity to dictate my creations as I am also aware that I live in the age of information, in a global age where global culture is shared by everyone through the web. Globalization was at the core of my thesis as I started finding interesting similarities between Latin American Colonial Art and American Consumer culture spread out around the world. It was a good way to reconcile my dual cultural heritage and incorporate them into my work. This was my first attempt to synthesize and recombine history and culture with a personal approach. This was quite successful and it motivated me to develop a deeper and more complex arrangement of religion, politics and historical figures and objects in my next art projects.  I chose to retain the “retablo” format as it communicated like no other format religious devotion and brought up to mind Christian imagery and history. As for the allusions of fast foods, well known corporations and consumerism in general, well they kept appearing and repapering because I constantly see them everywhere I go and it has affected me as an artist.

Partial view of  a wall of my studio at SCAD

In 2006 I presented my thesis show “ Iconsumer” at Hall Gallery in Savannah, Georgia. In 2007 I showed it in the Museum of the Americas in San Juan, Puerto Rico. “Iconsumer” was a show dealing with devotional Christian Icons and Consumerist propaganda painted in retablo triptychs. 

Partial view of Iconsumer 2007 in the Museum of the Americas, San Juan PR

Later that year I showed “Iconsumer Media” in the Museum and old convent of Las Capuchinas in Antigua Guatemala. With the new body of work I had emphasized the idea of a “Mediatic culture” manipulating information and pointing the way to new saints and consumer products. Now I was not only tying up religion and religious culture with consumerism but also with mass media and indoctrination strategies. The work seemed to be taking little steps ahead and kept evolving.

Introducing my work to the media in the colonial convent of Las Capuchinas

In 2008 some mythological figures started to show up in my work and I then “Syncretisms” was born. A Syncretism is the reconciliation of opposing beliefs by combining practices of different schools of thought. We can see many examples of this in literature and art especially during the Renaissance when humanist thought pervaded and merged classical ideas with Christian images. In the Caribbean many Catholic saints were syncretized with African Yoruba religion Orishas.  By means of syncretism many of the ancient pagan gods have been able to survive Christian persecution hiding under the guise of saints and virgins. After watching a documentary titled Zeitgeist I became more interested in doing some research and developing a new body of work that could incorporate classical figures into the already evolving narrative that I had begun with saints and corporations. 

Inspired in the figure of Christ and also the Greek god Apollo I created this piece on renewable energy. I felt this archetypal figure being a bringer of light must be a source of energy.It was not difficult to see a connection here with our current global issue of renewable energy.

I showed “Syncretisms” at Witzenhausen Gallery in New York. The show was composed of seven drawings and seven paintings based on the seven days of the week and seven gods. In this work my intention was to synthesize Christian Icons, Classical archetypes, with current global issues. I became preoccupied with finding esoteric meaning behind my symbols, including those that seemed most superficial like corporate logos and car models. I guess this urge to find hidden meaning behind everything has always been with me as an artist. So I took it a step further and studied pagan classical traditions from different sources and studied how ancient gods, festivities and symbols became Christianized. It became quite fascinating to me as I could compare how the corporate economy does the same thing as it appropriates particular identities of cultural groups and becomes one of them.

Conceptual guiding map to my work

 

 I began to see even more connections between marketing and religious indoctrination.  Everything started to make even more sense to me. Globalization had not started with the Christian enterprise in the Americas but far back in the late fourth century BC with Alexander the Great conquest and spread of Hellenic culture over the known world. From this thought is how the Syncretism’s came about.

Syncretisms at Witzenhausen Gallery, New York 2008

Syncretisms lead me to the project I am currently working on. ERADORADA or GOLDEN AGE is the culmination of some years of work, profound reflection and study. With the accumulated knowledge and experience of my previous work this new body of work brings many of those myths and doctrines from our current global age and embodied in the form of classical heroes, gods, saints and other historical icons. This has been the result of so many hours of research and an persistent curiosity in looking for significant correspondence between many philosophical systems that have driven the world to be westernized or as we may call it today globalized. 

Infant Informaticus 8” x 11” Egg tempera on panel, carved and gilded wood.

This is the way an idea may evolve. It starts with an awareness of who we are and in what time we live in. We start asking ourselves what has influenced us and inspired us in art as well as in life. We might be reminded of the ancient Greek aphorism found at the Oracle of Delphi that reads γνῶθι σεαυτόν “gnōthi seauton” (Know thyself). To know who we are we must look back at history and learn from it. History tells us the story of our origins and who we are today. We also look at nature and what’s around us. Ive created this “Trivium” or triple way pyramid that has guided me through the creative journey. 

  I’ve talked much about it in my classes and keep emphasizing its importance as any art movement in history can be traced down to any one of these directions in the Trivium triangle. There is much more to say about the matter but I do not wish to make my blog entry too long. For now these are some ideas that I put forth in order to start exploring in next blog entries the fascinating connections between these Christian doctrines, Pagan Mythology and the Global  issues of Media and Consumer culture.

An art studio as an art school

After some long hours of work (around seven to eight a day) a thought came to my mind. By spending so much time every day painting I start seeing my studio as a school. There is so much to be learned and unlearned from it every time you start working. Everyday I feel like a student learning from some exciting new discovery Ive made on my own. I enjoy sharing these personal discoveries in this blog with anyone interested.

Im aware that most of these discoveries are not really discoveries in the sense that someone else might have found out about it centuries before I did . This reminds me of those old history books that tell us Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas like no one else lived in the "New World" (New for the Europeans).An artist sensible enough to history will question these cultural assumptions. In an artist studio, the painter is challenged by constant unquestioned assumptions and rules that the painter must confront every time he or she is in front of his or her work. 

 

Going back to a few studio "discoveries" that I wish to share:

Not long ago I had a color palette placed right beside me. After some time twisting and turning to pick up some colors from my palette on  to my brushes I decided to change position and have the palette in front of me instead. This might be an obvious practice to many painters but something easy to forget with time and that was precisely my case. This is the reason why I think many of us should teach, in order to keep good studio habits fresh and alive by means of example. By keeping colors right in front of your painting, painting becomes a more direct and immediate activity.

The whole idea of creating a color palette is to facilitate the painting process, to paint faster and more effectively create and match colors. By placing a large glass or plexi glass palette in front and between the painting and myself I keep a good distance from my work. This allows me to see the whole while I work on the details. The problem with working too closely is that one looses focus of the whole picture and everything ends up in dis-harmony in the process.

I would say that an arms length is a proper distance with small works. I remember using long sticks attached to my brushes when working larger formats. Not only was I able to "see the whole picture" while I worked. My painting was even looser, more expressive and fluid. The Mexican muralists  like Diego Rivera and Siqueiros often used to work like this with very long brushes.

Something else I have learned or evolved to do in my studio is to keep fewer brushes when I work. Not only do I do this to spend less time cleaning and avoiding having to deal with dirty brushes but also I found that most of the time I ended up using seven brushes. These seven brushes are photographed below

Now I use just seven brushes that do most of the job. I also use a small rag or piece of cloth to wipe out mistakes or colored glazes and a palette knife. I use my fingers as well. Many painters from the past like Leonardo and Titian were into the habit of using their fingers to paint. The more direct one can handle paint the more control one has over it. Just make sure you are not using toxic pigments and make sure you don't bite your nails and wash your hands regularly. The seven brushes I use are composed of three small long liners, three medium sized filbert brushes and one relatively large round brush. Numbers and sizes vary according to brand but all of these are usually taklon synthetic or natural sable. Ive been surprised of how long my cheap brushes have survived and I suspect it has to do with what I do with them after every use. I dip them in olive oil and leave them resting over my working table. Olive oil is a very slow drying oil. In fact it does not seem to dry at all therefore not allowing paint in the brushes to dry. Of course when you use these brushes again you must make sure you wipe the olive oil off of them. Otherwise your painting will not dry either.

 The script, liner or rigger brush (all different names for this tiny long haired brush) are among my favorite brushes. With these I manage to get most of the minute detail in my small format and retablo work.
 I normally use three of these brushes at a time. A 20/0 a 6/0 and a 0. One will carry the dark colors, one the middle tones and the third lighter colors. I wipe out the paint off the brush when I go from one color to another.

I use number 2, 4 and  6 filbert brushes to paint larger areas within my composition. The same as with the liner brushes, I keep three for three values: light, middle and dark tones or values. The larger round brush I occupy to blend edges which is so important in this kind or realistic old master rendering. One must keep lines to a minimum in order to convey a convincing sense of atmosphere and what Leornardo Da Vinci would have called  "sfumato" (foggy or airy blending). I shall write more extensively about these terms in future entries. For now what I find relevant to mention is that good quality brushes are surely best to anything but a painting depends much more on how you use your tools than on what kind of tools you use. You may use crappy materials and produce masterpieces. Its how you use them what really matters. That is why I do not favor any particular kind of brand of oil paints or brushes. I would advice try them all if you can and stick to whatever suits you best. I have my personal preferences of course but these have changed in recent years.

On the photo above you may appreciate how Im blending my painted contour lines in order to maintain some tonal unity and  the illusion of an atmospheric"sfumato". The painting Ive been working on is my own version of the three graces re contextualized with the themes of consumerism, corn production and genetically manipulated organisms. I have borrowed Mayan  glyphs and classical poses and combined them with contemporary issues. It is titled "The survival of the Graces" . I shall post a photo of the work once it is completed. I wish to thank all of those who have commented on my blog and facebook. I thank you all for your support and are more than happy to receive your comments, suggestions or questions. I'll keep blogging every week and soon will deal more with conceptual issues which Im sure many of you will appreciate reading.