Artwork Details
- Title
- Humanscape 62
- Artist
- Date
- 1970
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- 73 x 97 in. (185.4 x 246.4 cm)
- Copyright
- © 1970, the Casas Family
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
- Mediums Description
- acrylic on canvas
- Classifications
- Highlights
- Keywords
- Object — foodstuff — brownie
- Indian
- Dress — uniform — scout uniform
- Object Number
- 2012.37
Artwork Description
In the early 1970s, Chicano activists successfully lobbied the Frito-Lay Company to remove its cartoon mascot for Frito-Lay corn chips, the Frito Bandito, from public circulation. This figure is the centerpiece of Casas's pop-styled painting Humanscape 62. A grinning Frito Bandito, who appears to have been carved from semi-precious stone, is perched atop a skeleton and surrounded by a series of "brown" references drawn from American and indigenous cultures. Such incongruent juxtapositions -- which include a tempting plate of brownies, a junior Girl Scout, a Native American in profile, and quotes of masterworks such as an Aztec mosaic -- critique the trivialization of Chicano culture by mainstream American advertising and allude to the rich cultures that stereotypes obscure.
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