Ana Mendieta
Ana Mendieta (November 18, 1948 – September 8, 1985) was a Cuban-American performance artist, sculptor, painter and video artist who is best known for her "earth-body" artwork. Born in Havana, Mendieta left for the United States in 1961. Early life and exile. Mendieta was born on November 18, 1948, in Havana, Cuba, to a wealthy family prominent in the country's politics and society. Her father, Ignacio Alberto Mendieta de Lizáur, was an attorney and the nephew of Carlos Mendieta, who was installed as president by Fulgencio Batista for just under two years. Her mother, Raquel Oti  de Rojas, was a chemist, a researcher, and the granddaughter of Carlos Maria de Rojas, a sugar mill owner celebrated for his role in the war against Spain for Cuban independence. Ana, aged 12, and her 15-year-old sister Raquelin were sent to the United States by their parents to live in Dubuque, Iowa through Operation Peter Pan, a collaborative program, run by the US government and the Catholic Charities, for Cuban children to flee Fidel Castro's dictatorship. Ana and Raquelin were among 14,000 children who immigrated to the United States through this program in 1961. Mendieta's  first two years in the United States consisted of constant alternation between foster homes and orphanages. The sisters were able to stay together during this time due to a power of attorney signed by their parents, which mandated that they not be separated. The two sisters spent their first weeks in refugee camps, and then moved between several institutions and foster homes throughout Iowa. In 1966, Mendieta was reunited with her mother and younger brother. Her father joined them in 1979, having spent 18 years in a political prison in Cuba for his involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion . Education. In Cuba, Mendieta grew up as a sheltered, upper-class child. She attended an all-girls Catholic private school. When she and her sister were sent to Iowa, they were enrolled in a reform school because the court wanted to avoid sending them to a state institution. When Mendieta studied English in school, her vocabulary was very limited. In junior high school, she discovered a love for art. Mendieta was first a French major and art minor, but when she transferred to the University of Iowa, she was inspired by the avant-garde community and the hills of Iowa 's landscape. She earned a BA (enrolled 1969–1972) and MA in painting, and an MFA (enrolled 1972–1977) in Intermedia under the instruction of acclaimed artist Hans Breder. In college, Mendieta's work focused on blood and violence toward women. Her interest in spiritualism, religion, and primitive rituals developed during this time. She said that she faced a great deal of discrimination in art school. After graduate school, she moved to New York City. Work. In the course of her career, Mendieta created work in Cuba, Mexico, Italy, and the United States. Her work was somewhat autobiographical, drawing from her history  of being displaced from her native Cuba, and focused on themes including feminism, violence, life, death, identity, place and belonging. Her works are generally associated with the four basic elements of nature. Mendieta often focused on a spiritual and physical connection with the Earth. She felt that by uniting her body with the earth she could become whole again: "Through my earth/body sculptures, I become one with the earth ... I become an extension of nature and nature becomes an extension of my body. This obsessive act of reasserting my ties with the earth is really the reactivation of primeval  beliefs ... [in] an omnipresent female force, the after image of being encompassing within the womb, is a manifestation of my thirst for being." During her lifetime, Mendieta produced over 200 works of art using earth as a sculptural medium. Her techniques were mainly influenced by Afro-Cuban traditions. Section::::"Rape Scene" 1973 Moffit Street, Iowa City, Iowa. In 1973, Mendieta performed "Rape Scene" which commented on the rape and murder of a fellow student that had occurred on the Iowa University campus by another student.  In the performance Mendieta invited friends and other students to visit her in her Moffit Street  apartment.  Upon arriving at her apartment, viewers were confronted with the image of Mendieta, naked from the waist down, smeared with blood, bent over, and bound to a table.  The work reflects Mendieta’s emotional reaction to the occurrence of sexual assault on the university campus. Membership in Artists In Residence Inc. In 1978, Ana Mendieta joined the Artists In Residence Inc (A.I.R. Gallery) in New York, which was the first gallery for women to be established in the United States. The venture gave her the opportunity to network with other women artists at the forefront of the era's  feminist movement. During that time, Mendieta was also actively involved in the administration and maintenance of the A.I.R. In an unpublished statement, she noted, "It is crucial for me to be a part of all my art works. As a result of my participation, my vision becomes a reality and part of my experiences." At the same time, after two years of involvement with A.I.R. she concluded that "American Feminism as it stands is basically a white middle class movement," and she sought to challenge the limits of this perspective through her art. She met her future husband Carl Andre  at the gallery, when he served on a panel titled "How has women's art practices affected male artist social attitudes?" Her resignation in 1982 is attributed, in part, to a dispute instigated by Andre over a collaborative art piece the couple had submitted. In a 2001 journal article, Kat Griefen, director of A.I.R from 2006 to 2011, wrote, The letter of resignation did not cite any reasons for her departure, but a number of fellow A.I.R. artists remember the related events. For a recent benefit Mendieta and Carl Andre had donated a collaborative piece. As was the policy, all  works needed to be delivered by the artist. Edelson recalls that Andre took offense, instigating a disagreement, which, in part, led to Mendieta's resignation. Even without this incident, according to another member, Pat Lasch, Mendieta's association with the now legendary Andre surely played some role in her decision.In 1983, Mendieta was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy in Rome. While in residence in Rome, Mendieta began creating art "objects," including drawings and sculptures. She continued to use natural elements in her work. Section::::"Silueta Series" (1973–1980). The "Silueta Series" (1973–1980) involved Mendieta creating female silhouettes in  nature—in mud, sand, and grass—with natural materials ranging from leaves and twigs to blood, and making body prints or painting her outline or silhouette onto a wall. In a 1981 artist statement, Mendieta said: I have been carrying out a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette). I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland (Cuba) during my adolescence. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that  unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source.When she began her "Silueta Series" in the 1970s, Mendieta was one of many artists experimenting with the emerging genres of land art, body art, and performance art. The films and photographs of Siluetas are in connection with the figures surrounding her body. Mendieta was possibly the first to combine these genres in what she called "earth-body" sculptures. She often used her naked body to explore and connect with the Earth, as seen in her piece "Imagen de Yagul", from the series "Silueta Works in Mexico  1973–1977". Mendieta's first use of blood to make art dates from 1972, when she performed "Untitled (Death of a Chicken)", for which she stood naked in front of a white wall holding a freshly decapitated chicken by its feet as its blood spattered her naked body. Appalled by the brutal rape and murder of nursing student Sarah Ann Ottens at the University of Iowa, Mendieta smeared herself with blood and had herself tied to a table in 1973, inviting an audience in to bear witness in "Untitled (Rape Scene)". Professor and art historian Kaira Cabañas writes about "Untitled (Rape  Scene)": Her body was the subject and object of the work. She used it to emphasize the societal conditions by which the female body is colonized as the object of male desire and ravaged under masculine aggression. Mendieta's corporeal presence demanded the recognition of a female subject. The previously invisible, unnamed victim of rape gained an identity. The audience was forced to reflect on its responsibility; its empathy was elicited and translated to the space of awareness in which sexual violence could be addressed. In a slide series, "People Looking at Blood Moffitt" (1973), she pours blood and rags  on a sidewalk and photographs a seemingly endless stream of people walking by without stopping, until the man next door (the storefront window bears the name H.F. Moffitt) comes out to clean it up. Mendieta also created the female silhouette using nature as both her canvas and her medium. She used her body to create silhouettes in the grass; she created silhouettes in sand and dirt; she created silhouettes of fire and filmed them burning. "Untitled (Ochún)" (1981), named for the Santería goddess of waters, once pointed southward from the shore at Key Biscayne, Florida. "Ñañigo Burial" (1976), with a  title taken from the popular name for an Afro-Cuban religious brotherhood, is a floor installation of black candles dripping wax in the outline of the artist's body. Through these works, which cross the boundaries of performance, film, and photography, Mendieta explored her relationship with a place as well as a larger relationship with mother Earth or the "Great Goddess" figure. Mary Jane Jacob suggests in her exhibition catalog "Ana Mendieta: The "Silueta" Series (1973–1980)" that much of Mendieta's work was influenced by her interest in the religion Santería, as well as a connection to Cuba. Jacob attributes  Mendieta's "ritualistic use of blood," and the use of gunpowder, earth, and rock, to Santería's ritualistic traditions. Jacob also points out the significance of the mother figure, referring to the Mayan deity Ix Chel, the mother of the gods. Many have interpreted Mendieta's recurring use of this mother figure, and her own female silhouette, as feminist art. However, because Mendieta's work explores many ideas including life, death, identity, and place all at once, it cannot be categorized as part of one idea or movement. Claire Raymond argues that the "Silueta Series," as a photographic archive , should be read for its photographicity rather than merely as documentation of earthworks. In "Corazon de Roca con Sangre (Rock Heart with Blood)" (1975) Mendieta kneels next to an impression of her body that has been cut into the soft muddy riverbank. Photo etchings of the "Rupestrian Sculptures" (1981). As documented in the book "Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works", edited by Bonnie Clearwater, before her death, Mendieta was working on a series of photo-etchings of cave sculptures she had created at Escaleras de Jaruco, Jaruco State Park in Havana, Cuba. Her sculptures were entitled "Rupestrian Sculptures" (1981)—the title  refers to living among rocks—and the book of photographic etchings that Mendieta created to preserve these sculptures is a testament to the intertextuality of her work. Clearwater explains that the photographs of Mendieta's sculptures were often as important as the piece they were documenting because the nature of Mendieta's work was so impermanent. She spent as much time and thought on the creation of the photographs as she did on the sculptures themselves. Mendieta returned to Havana, the place of her birth, for this project, but she was still exploring her sense of displacement and loss, according  to Clearwater. The "Rupestrian Sculptures" that Mendieta created were also influenced by the Taíno people, "native inhabitants of the pre-Hispanic Antilles," whom Mendieta became fascinated by and studied. Mendieta had completed five photo-etchings of the "Rupestrian Sculptures" before she died in 1985. The book "Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works", published in 1993, contains both photographs of the sculptures and Mendieta's notes on the project. Section::::"Body Tracks" (1982). "Body Tracks" ("Rastros Corporales") debuted on April 8, 1982, in Franklin Furnace in New York City. The tracks are long, blurry marks made by Mendieta on a large piece  of white paper attached to a wall. While recordings of the sacred music of Afro-Cuban Santeria were heard, Mendieta dipped her hands and forearms into a mixture of tempera paint and animal blood, pressed her hands and arms firmly to the paper's surface, and slid down towards the floor. The performance was documented in the 1987 film "Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra", and described by scholar Alexandra Gonzenbach: In the short piece, the artist enters the studio space, while Cuban music plays in the background. She dips her hands and forearms into animal blood, places her back to  the camera, lifts her arms and places them on a large sheet of white paper attached to a wall, and then proceeds to slowly drag her arms down the page, until almost reaching the bottom. She then walks off screen and out of the performance space. The camera, documentation, and performance stops.The resultant pieces of paper were preserved by the artist after the event, and appear now as works of art in their own right in the collection of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. A still photo from the exhibit was the cover art of the Third  Woman Press edition of the feminist anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (2002, ) Film works (1971–1980). In the 1970s Mendieta made number of experimental films. These include: In 2016 a traveling exhibition of her film work was mounted by the Katherine E. Nash Gallery of the University of Minnesota with the title "Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta". Film works released posthumously (1985–present). The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC, and family members found several films after her death while looking for work to be included in a retrospective  at the New Museum in 1987. In 2016, more films were uncovered and digitized in anticipation of a documentary directed by the artist's niece, Raquel Cecilia Mendieta. Exhibitions and collections. Mendieta presented a solo exhibition of her photographs at A.I.R. Gallery in New York in 1979. She also curated and wrote the introductory catalog essay for an exhibition at A.I.R. in 1981 entitled "Dialectics of Isolation: An Exhibition of Third World Women Artists of the United States", which featured the work of artists such as Judy Baca, Senga Nengudi, Howardena Pindell, and Zarina. The New Museum of Contemporary Art  in New York hosted Mendieta's first survey exhibition in 1987. Since her death, Mendieta has been recognized with international solo museum retrospectives such as "Ana Mendieta", Art Institute of Chicago (2011); and "Ana Mendieta in Context: Public and Private Work", De La Cruz Collection, Miami (2012). In 2004 the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., organized "Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance", a major retrospective that traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, and Miami Art Museum, Florida (2004). In 2017 her work was presented in the retrospective solo show  Ana Mendieta / Covered in Time and History at Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Sweden. Mendieta's work features in many major public collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; Tate Collection, London; and the Nasher Sculpture Center. Death and controversy. Ana Mendieta died on September 8, 1985, in New York City, after falling from her 34th-floor apartment in Greenwich Village at 300 Mercer Street. She lived there with her husband  of eight months, minimalist sculptor Carl Andre, who may have pushed her out the window. She fell 33 stories onto the roof of a deli. Just prior to her death, neighbors heard the couple arguing violently. The neighbors heard Mendieta scream out no and right before her death Andre had scratches all over his face. There were no eyewitnesses to the events that led up to Mendieta's death. A recording of Andre's 911 call showed him saying: "My wife is an artist, and I'm an artist, and we had a quarrel about the fact that I was  more, eh, exposed to the public than she was. And she went to the bedroom, and I went after her, and she went out the window." In 1988, Andre was tried for her murder and acquitted for second degree murder. During three years of legal proceedings, Andre's lawyer described Mendieta's death as a possible accident or suicide. The judge found Andre not guilty on grounds of reasonable doubt. The acquittal caused an uproar among feminists in the art world, and remains controversial to this day. In 2010, a symposium called "Where Is Ana Mendieta?" was held at New  York University to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her death. In May 2014, the feminist protest group No Wave Performance Task Force staged a protest in front of the Dia Art Foundation's retrospective on Carl Andre. The group deposited piles of animal blood and guts in front of the establishment, with protesters donning transparent tracksuits with "I Wish Ana Mendieta Was Still Alive" written on them. In March 2015, the "No Wave Performance Task Force" and a group of feminist poets from New York City traveled to Beacon, New York, to protest the Andre retrospective at , where they cried  loudly in the main gallery, made "siluetas" in the snow on museum grounds, and stained the snow with paprika, sprinkles, and fake blood. In April 2017, protesters at an Andre retrospective handed out cards at the Geffen Contemporary museum with the statement: "Carl Andre is at MOCA Geffen. "¿Dónde está Ana Mendieta?"" (Where is Ana Mendieta?). This was followed by an open letter to Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Director Philippe Vergne protesting the exhibit, from the group the Association of Hysteric Curators. Legacy. Mendieta's death in 1985 came to define her legacy which overshadowed the pioneering of her  art. In 2009, Mendieta was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Cintas Foundation. In 2018, "The New York Times" published a belated obituary for her that began, "Mendieta's art, sometimes violent, often unapologetically feminist and usually raw, left an indelible mark before her life was cut short." In 2010 she was the subject of Richard Move's controversial "Where is Ana Mendieta? 25 Years Later - An Exhibition and Symposium," which included his film, "BloodWork - The Ana Mendieta Story."