biography

Born in Havana, Cuba, 1948. Died in New York, USA, 1985.

Ana Mendieta, among the most celebrated Cuban artists, was originally trained as a painter: she soon turned to filmmaking and photography, and later drawing and sculpture, in her short yet extremely prolific career. She established an exceptional personal synthesis of Body and Land Art through the introduction of the human and female body in the landscape. The realization of ritual performances, translated through all her media, steep her own body into nature, thus emphasizing her physical and spiritual link with the Earth. She traveled and performed between Iowa and Mexico, revealing her interest in the earth as a site to address issues of displacement by recording the presence of her body—or the imprint it left behind—within different natural elements and environments.

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Born in Havana, Cuba, 1948. Died in New York, USA, 1985.

Ana Mendieta, among the most celebrated Cuban artists, was originally trained as a painter: she soon turned to filmmaking and photography, and later drawing and sculpture, in her short yet extremely prolific career. She established an exceptional personal synthesis of Body and Land Art through the introduction of the human and female body in the landscape. The realization of ritual performances, translated through all her media, steep her own body into nature, thus emphasizing her physical and spiritual link with the Earth. She traveled and performed between Iowa and Mexico, revealing her interest in the earth as a site to address issues of displacement by recording the presence of her body—or the imprint it left behind—within different natural elements and environments.

Among the major solo shows dedicated to the Cuban-American artist: Ana Mendieta. Search for Origin, MO.CO., Montpellier (2023); Ana Mendieta: Ochùn, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (2020); Ana Mendieta: Connecting to the Earth, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2019); Earthbound, Middleheim Museum, Antwerp (2019); Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (2016); NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL (2016); Bildmuseet, Umeå (2017); Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, and Institute for Contemporary Art, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (2018); Ana Mendieta: Alma, Silueta en Fuego, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (2015); Traces, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London (2013); She Got Love, Castello di Rivoli (2013); Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972-1985, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines and Miami Art Museum, Miami (2004); Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) – Body Tracks, Neues Museum Luzern, Lucerne and Fries Museum, Leeuwarden (2002); Ana Mendieta Selected Works, Kunst-Werke Berlin KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin (2002); Ana Mendieta, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela; Kusthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf; Fundació Antoni Tápies, Barcelona; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey, Monterrey and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (1996); Ana Mendieta (1948–1985), Helsinki City Art Museum, Helsinki; Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala; The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik and Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde (1996); Ana Mendieta: The Late Works, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland and Artothèque de Caen, Caen (1994).

 

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images

Ochún, 1981

3/4 inch U-matic color video with sound

8'17''

Birth (Gunpowder Works), 1981

Super-8mm black and white, silent film transferred to high-definition digital media

2'59"

Source, 1975

16mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent

2'05"

Alma, Silueta en Fuego, 1975

Super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent

3' 07"

Flower Person, Flower Body, 1975

Super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent

6'20"

Mirage, 1974

Super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent

3' 12"

Untitled (Mirage), 1974

Super-8 mm transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent

3'18''

Body Tracks, 1974

Super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent

1'01"

public exhibitions

MO.CO

Montpellier, France

Ana Mendieta. Search for Origin

3.6 – 10.9.2023

Hammer Museum

Los Angeles, California

Joan Didion: What She Means

9.10.2022 – 19.2.2023

Talbot Rice Gallery

The University of Edinburgh

Pine's Eye

29.2 – 9.5.2020

Baltimore Museum of Art BMA

Baltimore

Ana Mendieta: Blood Inside Outside

1.3 – 28.6.2020

Photo: Mitro Hood

Institute of Modern Art

Brisbane

Ana Mendieta: Connecting to the Earth

9.2 – 30.3.2019

Photo: Carl Warner

American Academy in Rome

Rome

The Academic Body

23.5 – 13.7.2019

Photo: Giorgio Benni. Courtesy: American Academy in Rome

MCA

Chicago

a body measured against the earth

21.9.2018 – 7.4.2019

Photo: Nathan Keay. © MCA Chicago

Gropius Bau

Berlin

Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta

20.4 – 22.7.2018


© The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC.,Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co., photo: Mathias Völzke

Akademie der Künste (Hanseatenweg)

Berlin

10 Berlin Biennale

9.6 – 9.9.2018

Photo: Timo Ohler

press

Féminisme, écologie : comment Ana Mendieta a anticipé les enjeux de demain

Matthieu Jacquet

Numéro

September 15, 2023

Ana Mendieta – Aux commencements au MO.CO. Panacée à Montpellier

En Revenant de l'Expo

July 10, 2023

100 opere di Ana Mendieta al MO.CO., 10 mai viste

Luana de Micco

Il Giornale dell'Arte

June 1, 2023

How Ana Mendieta’s Body-Earth Feminised Land Art

Alejandra Espinosa

Title-Mag

March 10, 2022

The Kids Are Always Right

Helen Molesworth

Artforum

January 2020

Ana Mendieta

Source, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Via Stradella 4

Phroom

December 18, 2019

The Connection and Burdens of Ana Mendieta

Sarah Moroz

Modern Painters

November 2018

Ana Mendieta

Elisabetta Tolosano

Flash Art

July 21, 2015

Ana Mendieta

Kristen M. Jones

Frieze

November 11, 2004

publications

Ana Mendieta: La tierra habla (The Earth Speaks)

Lucy Lippard, Anna Lovatt, Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, and Gerardo Mosquera

Galerie Lelong & Co.

New York

2019

Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta

Edited by by Howard Oransky

University of California Press

Oakland

2015

Ana Mendieta: Traces

Texts by Ralph Rugoff, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Adrian Heathfield, Stephanie Rosenthal

Hayward Gallery Publishing

London

2013

Ana Mendieta. She Got Love

Edited by Beatrice Merz and Olga Gambari

Skira

Milan

2013

Unseen Mendieta: The Unpublished Works of Ana Mendieta

Olga Viso

Prestel

Munich

2008

Ana Mendieta: Earth Body. Sculpture and Performance 1972 -1985

Edited by Olga Viso

Hatje Cantz

Berlin

2004

video


Ana Mendieta au Jeu de Paume Concorde - Paris

2019

The exhibition "Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta" is the first museum exhibition devoted to the filmworks of this highly acclaimed Cuban-American artist (Havana, 1948 - New York, 1985). Bringing together 20 moving image works and 27 related photographs, the exhibition is the largest gathering of the artist’s filmic work ever presented as a full-scale exhibition in France.

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