Thirty years after her untimely death and murder trial rocked New York, Ana Mendieta has become a sy
Thirty years after her untimely death and murder trial rocked New York, Ana Mendieta has become a symbol of the sexism and seedy injustices of the art world. Tragically, the groundbreaking nature of her work is frequently overshadowed by that history. Fusing art, diplomacy, and life, Mendieta took risks, experimenting with performance, video, and other unconventional mediums at a time when the market had no interest in them. Her “earth body” works—for which she imprinted her silhouette into archaeological sites, beaches, and caves in Mexico and Cuba—are her best-known. These ephemeral pieces, meant to live on in photographic documentation, evinced a stalwart belief in the body as an artist’s most potent expressive means. To make this Silueta here, Mendieta dug the shape of her body into a sandy beach and filled it with red pigment, evoking both bloody violence and a mystical collapse between body and nature, slowly dissolving as the tide washes in. Mendieta also explored her Cuban roots and forged long-lasting artistic ties with the island at a time when the political cost of doing so was enormous. In my art history, she is one of the most significant figures of the past several decades, and neither her violent death at the hands of Carl Andre nor her cooptation by younger artists in the name of feminism can obscure the true brilliance and earnest intensity of her short career.Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Silueta series, Mexico), 1976 -- source link
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