In honor of Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Festa's Archive Fever posts a few days early this week with five portraits of her by San Francisco collage artist Jason Mecier. By way of introduction, I've pulled from the archive the note I wrote in Portraits and Installations, a catalogue of original and commissioned work I self-published in 2002.
Jason Mecier
Three Divas: Maria, Jackie, Liz
1998
beans, macaroni, corn, lemon pits
Jason Mecier
Four Marthas, after Liz Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)
Untitled (Laughing and Smoking) 2002
Untitled (Haranguing) 2001
Untitled ("Now how do you like it?") 2002
Untitled (Despair) 1999
Jason Mecier, a self-described mosaic portrait artist, is best known for his virtuoso bean and noodle collages. My first commissions to him were three 1960s divas, Maria Callas, Jackie O in sunglasses and scarf, and Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, to be done in beans and noodles (the corn was a welcome surprise; it was years before I discovered the lemon pits).
The obsession with Jackie, Liz and Maria, I must confess, is not mine. It is borrowed from a Yale professor of mine, the poet and essayist Wayne Koestenbaum, whose artistic sensibility with reference to popular culture had, it seemed to me, a great affinity with Jason's. The commissioning of this triptych came as a way of introducing the two artists--in the virtual, artistic realm--to see what Jason would do with the images and icons that Wayne so trenchantly and fancifully analyzed in his books "Jackie Under My Skin" and "The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality and the Mystery of Desire."
Jason may be known for his bean-and-noodle collages, but many of his best pieces more closely match the materials to the subject matter. There is Tammy Faye Bakker out of fingernails and nail polish, Demi Moore in G.I. Jane out of dog food (her left tit doubles as a doorbell), Jerry Seinfeld out of breakfast cereal, Martha Stewart out of cold cuts. Over the course of three years, I have commissioned the quartet of mosaics picturing Liz Taylor as Martha in Mike Nichols's movie adaptation of Edward Albee's play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" The thematically inspired materials are broken booze bottles and cigarette butts. Look for the rubbing alcohol label in the fourth mosaic (Despair), and the pregnancy warning label in the third ("Now how do you like it?"). Also note, in the background of the third one, the figure of George Segal as Nick trying to restrain Martha.
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Jason Mecier Four Marthas, after Liz Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) Untitled (Laughing and Smoking) 2002 |
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Jason Mecier Four Marthas, after Liz Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) Untitled (Haranguing) 2001 |
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Jason Mecier Four Marthas, after Liz Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) Untitled ("Now how do you like it?") 2002 |
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Jason Mecier Four Marthas, after Liz Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) Untitled (Despair) 1999 |
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Jason Mecier Three Divas: Maria 1998 beans, macaroni, corn, lemon pits |
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Jason Mecier Three Divas: Jackie 1998 beans, macaroni, corn, lemon pits |
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Jason Mecier Three Divas: Liz 1998 beans, macaroni, corn, lemon pits |
5 comments:
Hi Paul!
Thank you so much for the great documentation and information about these art pieces. I forgot how many portraits I made for you. OMG! I am grateful and also pleasantly surprised that they still look good. Also saddened by Dame Elizabeth Taylor's passing.
With appreciation,
Jason
They are among my most prized possessions Jason.
these are amazing, thanks for posting them.
you are so lucky to own these! They are stunning.
I feel extremely lucky - both to know Jason and to have been in a position to commission them.
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