Jane Blocker

Ana Mendieta

An analysis of the career of Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-American feminist artist who came to prominence in the late 70s and early 80s, in terms of gender and performance theory.

Identity, Performativity, and Exile

Where is Ana Mendieta?

Gloria Moure

This monograph on the Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta provides the most comprehensive overview of her career available in English. From her early performances to her Land Art works, sculptures, and drawings, examples from all phases of her career--from the late 1960s to her death in 1985-- are considered here in extensive color plates, several in-depth essays, and writings by the artist.

Olga M. Viso

"Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) produced some of the most compelling images of body- and identity-oriented art of the 1970s. The tracks made by the artist dragging her blood-covered arms down a wall; the pigment-filled void of her silhouette pressed into a sandy beach, consumed by advancing waves; her bodily outline drawn by ignited gunpowder on the earth or set alight with fireworks against the night sky; and fetishistic goddess shapes molded in soil, adorned with flowers, resound in the histories of feminist art, performance and land art, and late twentieth-century Latin American art." "Despite major survey exhibitions by museums in the United States, Europe, and Latin America over the last decade, however, a large body of work by Mendieta remains unknown. Hundreds of 35 mm slides in the artist's personal archive, including many that document her extensive Silueta series - her signature "earth-body works" created in the landscapes of Mexico, Iowa, upstate New York, and Cuba between 1973 and 1981 - remain unpublished and are unknown even to the most knowledgeable of contemporary art scholars. In addition to the slide works published in this volume for the first time, there are selections from her many black-and-white photographic negatives and contact sheets, documenting unknown sculptural works produced in the early 1980s, as well as revealing pages from the artist's diaristic sketchbooks."--BOOK JACKET.

The Unpublished Works of Ana Mendieta

Unseen Mendieta

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban-American artist who, in her tragically short career, made over 100 films in direct dialogue with her work in performance, sculpture and photography. Over two screenings, the series presents 27 of the over 100 film and video works made by the artist over a ten-year period. [The first] screening presents a selection of the short films Mendieta made between 1971 and 1974, beginning with what is believed to be her first film. Mendieta appears in the majority of the films from this period, whether in public performances or in privately filmed actions. Using materials such as animal blood, bird feathers, grass, air, water and earth, she stages ritualistic scenes characterised by their deep sense of poignancy and poetic beauty. [The second] screening presents a selection of short films Mendieta made between 1975 and 1981. In 1975, the artist experimented with different imaging and processing technologies including video and Cinefluography (X-ray motion film). These are the last films in which she appears. In Mendieta's Silueta films (1974-81), we see the artist's silhouette inscribed into various outdoor landscapes in Iowa and Mexico using natural elements such as earth, sand, flowers, rock and grass, often in conjunction with flammable materials such as fireworks and gunpowder. The programme concludes with two films shot in Mendieta's native country of Cuba. These works capture the artist's rock etchings and sand sculpture of goddess figures from the Pre-Columbian Taíno culture.--from Tate website.

Body Tracks

Julia Bryan-Wilson

Adrian Heathfield

Stephanie Rosenthal

During her short career, Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) created a body of work that was provocative and radically inventive. Using her own body, together with elemental materials - blood, fire, earth and water - she created visceral performances and ritual ephemeral 'earth-body' sculptures exploring life, death, rebirth and spiritual transformation.Born in Cuba but sent to America as a child, much of her art expresses the pain and rupture of cultural displacement and exile. Her images are compelling, mysterious and poetic. In some, the outline of her body is consumed by gunpowder, fireworks, or advancing waves; others record ancient goddess-forms moulded from sand, carved into rock, or incised in clay.This book includes an anthology of never seen before material including Mendieta's own writings and press coverage of her shows. Encompassing a wealth of her drawings, photography and filmography, it also provides a compre­hensive and enlightening perspective on this important artist's work.This title accompanies the first monograph exhibition of this artist in the UK at Hayward Gallery, 24 September - 15 December 2013.

Ana Mendieta

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