Ana Mendieta

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 allowed the opportunity for Mendieta to network with other women artists at the forefront of the era's feminist movement.[15] During that time, Mendieta was also actively involved in the administration and maintenance of the A.I.R. In an unpublished statement, Mendieta noted that "It is crucial for me to be a part of all my art works.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."[15] At the same time, after two years of her involvement at A.I.R. she concluded that "American Feminism as it stands is basically a white middle class movement", and sought to challenge the limits of this perspective through her art.[16] 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?"[17] 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,[18] 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.[15]

In 1983, Mendieta was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. While in residence in Rome, Mendieta began creating art "objects", including drawings and sculptures.[19] She continued to use natural elements in her work.[20]

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.[21]

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.[22]

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.[23] 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.[24] 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.[25] 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).[26][27] 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.[6]

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.[27]

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.[2] 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.[13]

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. [28]

Jacob also points out the significance of the mother figure, referring to the Mayan deity Ix Chel, the mother of the gods.[29] 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.[30]

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.[9]

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.[31] Her sculptures were entitled Rupestrian Sculptures (1981)—the title refers to living among rocks[32]—and the book of photographic etchings that Mendieta was created to preserve these sculptures is a testament to the intertextuality of Mendieta's work. Clearwater explains how 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. Mendieta spent as much time and thought on the creation of the photographs as she did on the sculptures themselves.[31]

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.[33] The Rupestrian Sculptures that Mendieta created were also influenced by the Taíno people, "native inhabitants of the pre-Hispanic Antilles," which Mendieta became fascinated by and studied.[34]

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 as well as Mendieta's notes on the project.[35]

Body Tracks (Rastros Corporales) debuted on April 8, 1982, in Franklin Furnace in New York City.[36] 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 are heard,[6] Mendieta dipped her hands and forearms into a mixture of tempera paint and animal blood, pressed her hands and arms firmly to its surface and slid down towards the floor.[36][37]

The performance was documented in the 1987 film Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra,[38] 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.[39]

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.[36] 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, ISBN 0943219221)

Though well known for her photographs, Mendieta's experimentations with film rose to critical acclaim on the occasion of the 2016 exhibition "Ana Mendieta: Experimental and Interactive Films" at Galerie Lelong, New York.[40][41]

• Creek (1974)[42]
  • This film builds on the Shakespearean character of Ophelia. It was shot in San Felipe Creek, Oaxaca, Mexico. In the film, Mendieta merges with the water.[43]
• Ochún (1981)[42]
  • Mendieta filmed Ochun in Key Biscayne, Florida. It is about the Santería goddess, Ochún- the Orisha of the river. It features sand silhouettes, seagull sounds, ocean waves, and emphasizes themes of longing for another land. It was her last film.[43]
• Chicken Movie, Chicken Piece (1972)
• Parachute (1973)
• Moffitt Building Piece (1973)
• Grass Breathing (1974)
• Dog (1974)
• Mirage (1974)
• Weather Balloon, Feathered Balloon (1974)
• Silueta Sangrienta (1975)
• Energy Charge (1975)[42]

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.[44][45] As of 2019, that film, Rebel By Nature, is in post-production.[46]

• Pain of Cuba/Body I Am (2018)
• The Earth That Covers Us Speaks (2018)