Ana Mendieta at the Whitney
Museum of American Art
Kristen M. Jones. Frieze,
UK, December 9, 2004.
It's commonplace to note when exhibitions
offer a timely opportunity to reconsider
an artist's work, but in Ana Mendieta's
case such observations are as disturbing
as they are apt. 'Ana Mendieta: Earth Body,
Sculpture and Performance, 1972-1985' follows
a smattering of shows and thoughtful critical
re-examinations that have cropped up in
recent years, and it should contribute greatly
toward fostering an appreciation of Mendieta's
elusive yet rigorous projects. Not least
important, it is accompanied by a substantial
catalogue featuring incisive essays by Olga
M. Viso, Chrissie Iles, Julia P. Herzberg
and Guy Brett. But the prevailing misinterpretation,
marginalization or outright dismissal of
Mendieta's work since her premature death
in 1985 have a particular sting. This re-evaluation
is long overdue - and much deserved.
The show opens with striking photographic
images that document early performances
in which Mendieta enacted dramatic bodily
transformations - applying thick make-up,
donning wigs, covering her face with a torn
stocking - whose similarity to later works
by Cindy Sherman has been noted by more
than one critic. Other photographs capture
tough performances incorporating blood,
which responded to Viennese Actionism as
well as feminist concerns. The show pays
special attention to these and other works
Mendieta created during her decade-long
stint at the University of Iowa, where she
enthusiastically participated in Hans Breder's
ground-breaking Intermedia programme. Breder
(who was Mendieta's lover and occasional
artistic collaborator before her marriage
to Carl Andre) promoted an interdisciplinary,
process-oriented approach to art-making,
and brought an array of artists involved
with Conceptual and Performance art to visit,
including Scott Burton and Vito Acconci.
Equally important for Mendieta were trips
she began to take to Mexico, which fed her
growing fascination with pre-Columbian iconography.
In Mexico she also made the first of her
'Siluetas' (1973-80), richly developed,
eerily symbolic works in which she cut,
burnt, drew or otherwise shaped a human
silhouette (usually her own) into an array
of outdoor sites. In Cuba, the homeland
from which she had been exiled at the age
of 12 and to which she often longed to return,
she produced her 'Rupestrian Sculptures'
(1981), carving anthropomorphic shapes into
ancient limestone grottoes. Questioning
the tendency of much Earth art to dominate
the landscape, she used the term 'Earth
Body' to describe her ephemeral interventions.
The stark beauty of the 'Siluetas' (all
the more potent for being incidental) is
hard to overstate - in photographs and films
red and white flowers glow against sand,
water, or greenery; flames, sometimes tinted
by the artist, burn against sky and earth.
Mendieta drew heavily on research about
indigenous beliefs, including Santería
deities. Fearing essentialist readings,
she eventually attempted to distance her
work from association with feminist goddess
cults, but biases were hard to shake. Sculptures
and drawings Mendieta produced during the
early 1980s are haunting but uncharacteristically
static. On the other hand, the Super-8 films
with which she carefully documented her
actions form the show's radiant heart. Iles
notes in the catalogue that 'just as Mendieta
constructed each action and sculpture as
a private act of meditation and dedication,
she filmed each one in a way that allows
it to be re-experienced.' Camera angles,
distance, framing and colour contribute
to their tense poetry. Shot from multiple
vantage points in the film Untitled (Flower
Person) (1975), a white peony figure floats
down a creek on a bier then breaks apart,
evoking the dying Ophelia. The spine-tingling
footage of Anima, Silueta de Cohetes (Soul,
Silhouette of Fireworks, 1976) shows the
artist's wicker effigy exploding with fireworks
at night-time. Mendieta produced nearly
80 of these films, making her, as Iles points
out, the most prolific artist--filmmaker
of the period.
The tendency to overemphasize aspects of
Mendieta's personal biography, especially
her gender and tragic death, calls to mind
similar problems with the critical reception
of Eva Hesse's work. (In contrast, Robert
Smithson's reputation was only enhanced
by his early demise, which was perceived
as unconnected to his artistic production
rather than somehow inevitable.) But this
Cuban émigrée knew that she
faced multiple challenges in presenting
her radically inventive work. A decade ago
Luis Camnitzer wrote perceptively in his
book New Art of Cuba of the rift between
Mendieta's art and the contemporary American
mainstream caused by the dual preoccupation
with her work as 'ethnic and feminist'.
He wrote: 'The fact of her double separateness,
along with the artificiality of the quota
system, created a static that tended to
interfere with a direct relationship to
her work by the audience.' Camnitzer went
on to quote derogatory remarks made by certain
critics after Mendieta's death and to note
that, even in 1994, the time was not ripe
for adequate appreciation of her work. One
hopes that time has finally arrived. Kristin
M. Jones
©Copyright
Frieze 2004
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