Mendieta, Ana, 1948-1985

Ana Mendieta (November 18, 1948 – September 8, 1985) was a Cuban-American performance artist, sculptor, painter, and video artist who is best known for her "earth-body" artwork. She is considered one of the most influential Cuban-American artists of the post–World War II era. Born in Havana, Cuba, Mendieta left for the United States in 1961.[1]

Mendieta died on September 8, 1985, in New York City, after falling from her 34th-floor apartment. She lived there with her husband of eight months, minimalist sculptor Carl Andre. The circumstances surrounding her death have been the subject of controversy.

Early life and exile
Mendieta was born on November 18, 1948, in Havana, Cuba,[2] to a wealthy family prominent in the country's politics and society.[3] Her father, Ignacio Alberto Mendieta de Lizáur, was an attorney and the nephew of Carlos Mendieta, who was installed as president by Fulgencio Batista for just under two years. Her mother, Raquel Oti de Rojas, was a chemist, a researcher, and the granddaughter of Carlos Maria de Rojas, a sugar mill owner celebrated for his role in the war against Spain for Cuban independence.[4][5][6] Ana, aged 12, and her 15-year-old sister Raquelin were sent to the United States by their parents to live in Dubuque, Iowa,[7] through Operation Peter Pan, a collaborative program run by the US government and the Catholic Charities for Cuban children to flee Fidel Castro's government.[8] Ana and Raquelin were among 14,000 children who migrated to the United States through this program in 1961. The sisters were able to stay together during this time due to a power of attorney signed by their parents, which mandated that they not be separated.[9] The two sisters spent their first weeks in refugee camps, and then moved between several institutions and foster homes throughout Iowa.[2] In 1966, Mendieta was reunited with her mother and younger brother. Her father joined them in 1979, having spent 18 years in a political prison in Cuba for his involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion.[2] In Cuba, Ana Mendieta grew up as a sheltered, upper-class child. She attended an all-girls Catholic private school. When she and her sister were sent to Iowa, they were enrolled in a reform school because the court wanted to avoid sending them to a state institution.[10] When Mendieta studied English in school, her vocabulary was very limited. In junior high school, she discovered a love for art.[9] Mendieta was first a French major and art minor, but when she transferred to the University of Iowa, she was inspired by the avant-garde community and the hills of Iowa's landscape.[11] She earned a BA (enrolled 1969–1972) and MA in painting, and an MFA (enrolled 1972–1977) in Intermedia under the instruction of acclaimed artist Hans Breder.[12] She faced a great deal of discrimination while in art school. In college, Mendieta's work focused on blood and violence toward women. Her interest in spiritualism, religion, and primitive rituals developed during this time.[13] After graduate school, she moved to New York City.[9] “Seeing her in New York was always a joy because she always had friends around her,” said her longtime friend Sherry Buckberrough, a retired art history professor. “She networked very well, so there was always some event that we would go to. And there would always be a party later, that’s for sure.”[14]

Work

Still from Blood + Feathers (1974) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2022
In the course of her career, Mendieta created works in Cuba, Mexico, Italy, and the United States.[12] Her work was somewhat autobiographical, drawing from her history of being displaced from her native Cuba, and focused on themes including feminism, violence, life, death, identity, place, and belonging.[15] Many of her works included ephemeral outdoor performances and photographs, sculptures and drawings.[16] Her works are generally associated with the four Classical elements. Mendieta often focused on a spiritual and physical connection with the earth. She felt that by uniting her body with the earth she could become whole again: "Through my earth/body sculptures, I become one with the earth ... I become an extension of nature and nature becomes an extension of my body. This obsessive act of reasserting my ties with the earth is really the reactivation of primeval beliefs ... [in] an omnipresent female force, the after image of being encompassing within the womb, is a manifestation of my thirst for being."[17] During her lifetime, Mendieta produced more than 200 works of art using earth as a sculptural medium.[18] Her techniques were mainly influenced by Afro-Cuban traditions.[19] Ana Mendieta died on September 8, 1985, in New York City, after falling from her 34th-floor apartment in Greenwich Village at 300 Mercer Street. She lived there with her husband of eight months, minimalist sculptor Carl Andre. The circumstances surrounding her death have been the subject of controversy.[65] She fell 33 stories onto the roof of a deli.[66] Just prior to her death, neighbors heard the couple arguing violently.[42] The neighbors heard Mendieta scream out "no" right before her death, and Andre had scratches all over his face.[8] There were no eyewitnesses to the events that led up to Mendieta's death.[67] A recording of Andre's 911 call showed him saying: "My wife is an artist, and I'm an artist, and we had a quarrel about the fact that I was more, eh, exposed to the public than she was. And she went to the bedroom, and I went after her, and she went out the window."[68] During three years of legal proceedings,[67] Andre's lawyer described Mendieta's death as a possible accident or a suicide. After a nonjury trial, Andre was acquitted of second-degree murder in February 1988.[68]

The acquittal caused an uproar among feminists in the art world, and remains controversial. In 2010, a symposium called Where Is Ana Mendieta? was held at New York University to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her death.[69] In May 2014, the feminist protest group No Wave Performance Task Force staged a protest in front of the Dia Art Foundation's retrospective on Carl Andre.[70] The group deposited piles of animal blood and guts in front of the establishment, with protesters donning transparent tracksuits with "I Wish Ana Mendieta Was Still Alive" written on them. In March 2015, the No Wave Performance Task Force and a group of feminist poets from New York City traveled to Beacon, New York, to protest the Andre retrospective at Dia Beacon, where they cried loudly in the main gallery, made "siluetas" in the snow on museum grounds, and stained the snow with paprika, sprinkles, and fake blood.[71] In April 2017, protesters at an Andre retrospective handed out cards at the Geffen Contemporary museum with the statement: "Carl Andre is at MOCA Geffen. ¿Dónde está Ana Mendieta?" (Where is Ana Mendieta?). This was followed by an open letter to Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Director Philippe Vergne protesting the exhibit, from the group the Association of Hysteric Curators.[72]