98 KOSHARE WATERMELON SOUP CANS
John Lefelhocz
Athens, Ohio
2006
Cotton, cardboard tube, printed paper
53 x 46 inches (h x w)

Hopi Koshare doll with watermelon |
Koshare are among the five jester or trickster figures of the Pueblo Indians' Kachina religion. Hopi Koshare figures are both sacred and profane, and their behavior can be comic, lewd, scatological, eccentric, and alarming. Unmasked and adorned in black and white stripes, they amuse audiences during pauses in Kachina fertility dances with inappropriate actions, loud conversations, and gluttony, which often involves gorging themselves on watermelons. Their clowning is intended to defuse community tensions at the same time it re-enforces taboos and communicates tradition.
John Lefelhocz points out that "the world of fine art has and needs Koshare-like clowns as well." One of those fine art world clowns was Andy Warhol, whose paintings of Campbell soup cans first brought him to prominence in the early 1960s. Lefelhocz's quilt adds further layers to Warhol's dead pan Pop Art (Warhol said he painted Campbell's soup because his mother fed it to him and he ate it for lunch every day), bringing together Warhol and his painting of 100 cans and the Hopi Koshares and their use of watermelons to present ninety-eight cans of "Andy Koshare's Watermelon Soup." This is a prime example of Lefelhocz's concept of "juxtapassion," putting things he feels strongly about side by side. The title also of course puns on Koshare/kosher.
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100 Cans
Andy Warhol, c. 1962 |

$3500
Contact Robert Shaw to purchase or for more information
More quilts by John Lefelhocz


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