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Goldman

33

Mel Casas of Texas has translated one of these realities into a bitingly 
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satirical painting called Kitchen Spanish, from his Humanscape series. Using a "Pop realism," Kitchen Spanish features a cartoon–like Mexican maid standing before a close–up of a modern kitchen sink, surrounded by a realistically painted Anglo family, its cat and its dog. The comic–strip balloon reads "Sí, niño, sí, niña, sí señoras, sí gato, sí perra" (Yes, little boy, yes, little girl, yes, ladies, yes, cat, yes, dog). In this world, only the Anglos are "real" (three–dimensional) and have power. The level of verbal communication (The "Spanish" of the title) is determined by class status - just enough to function in the kitchen, passively. The meek maid is subservient to all present, from the two generations of white women to the household pets. Casas' paintings are based on "movie–screen" close–up format with titles often stenciled on the canvas just as titles appear on the screen. They often rely on a play of verbal and visual puns, or "conundrums" - a riddle based on a pun. "The conundrum," says the artist, "plays with our cultural concepts, with our cultural vision."

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