| Exhibit
Features Cuban-Born Artist's Works Artist Mendieta Has
Iowa Ties KCCI
8 Iowa. February 20, 2005. DES MOINES,
Iowa -- Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta is about to get a much-deserved Iowa homecoming. Starting
next week, the Des Moines Art Center will display the most extensive collection
of Mendieta's diverse and unique works. Many of them were made in Iowa during
her college days at the University of Iowa. At the age of 12, Mendieta
and her sister were shipped off to the United States from Havana by their parents.
The two girls landed in a Dubuque orphanage and were shuffled among several foster
homes before graduating from high school. After graduating from Iowa, Mendieta
moved to New York. She died in 1985 when she plunged from the 34th floor of her
New York City apartment. Her husband was charged with murder, but later acquitted. The
exhibit features images of Mendieta covered in mud with her back against a tree
trunk and silhouettes of her naked figure implanted in the landscape. It
also features delicate sculptures of soil and wood that represent abstract forms
of her body and clips from her collection of nearly 80 performance art videos. The
exhibit opens Feb. 24. | 
