Ana Mendieta

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. Born in Havana, Mendieta left for the United States in 1961.

Ana Mendieta
Mendieta in 1981
Born	(1948-11-18)November 18, 1948 Havana, Cuba
Died	September 8, 1985(1985-09-08) (aged 36) New York City
Education	University of Iowa
Known for	Performance art, sculpture, video art
Spouse(s)	Carl Andre ( m. 1985)

Early life and exile

Mendieta was born on November 18, 1948, in Havana, Cuba,[1] to a family prominent in the country's politics and society.[2] Her father, Ignacio Alberto Mendieta de Lizáur, was an attorney and her mother, Raquel Oti de Rojas, was a chemist and researcher.[3] Ana, aged 12, and her 15-year-old sister Raquelin were sent to the United States by their parents to live in Dubuque, Iowa[4] through Operation Peter Pan, a collaborative program run by the US government and the Catholic Charities. Mendieta and her sister Raquelin were among 14,000 children who immigrated to America on their own in 1961. Mendieta's first two years in the United States consisted of constant alternation from foster homes and orphanages. The sisters were able to stay together during this time due to a power of attorney signed by their parents mandating that they not be separated.[5] Mendieta and her sister spent their first weeks in refugee camps before moving between several institutions and foster homes throughout Iowa.[1] 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.[1]

Education

In Cuba, Mendieta grew up as a sheltered, middle-class child. Mendieta 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.[6] When Mendieta studied English in school, her vocabulary was very limited. In junior high school, she discovered a love for art.[5] 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.[7] 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.[8] In college, Mendieta's work focused on blood and violence toward women. Her interest in spiritualism, religion, and primitive rituals developed during this time.[9] She said that she faced a great deal of discrimination in art school. After graduate school, she moved to New York City.[5]

Work

Through the course of her career, Mendieta created work in Cuba, Mexico, Italy, and the United States.[8] Her work was somewhat autobiographical, drawing from her history of being displaced from her natal Cuba, and focused on themes including feminism, violence, life, death, identity, place and belonging. Her works are generally associated with the four basic elements of nature. Mendieta often focused on a spiritual and physical connection with the Earth. Mendieta 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."[10] During her lifetime, Mendieta produced over 200 works of art using earth as a sculptural medium.[11] Her techniques were mainly influenced by Afro-Cuban traditions.[12]

Membership in Artists In Residence Inc

In 1978, Ana Mendieta joined the Artists In Residence Inc (A.I.R. Gallery) in New York, which was the first gallery for women to be established in the United States. The venture allowed the opportunity for Mendieta to network with other women artists at the forefront of the era's feminist movement.[13] During that time, Mendieta was also actively involved in the administration and maintenance of the A.I.R. In an unpublished statement, Mendieta noted that "It is crucial for me to be a part of all my art works. As a result of my participation, my vision becomes a reality and part of my experiences."[13] At the same time, after two years of her involvement at A.I.R. she concluded that "American Feminism as it stands is basically a white middle class movement", and sought to challenge the limits of this perspective through her art.[14] She met her future husband Carl Andre at the gallery when he served on a panel titled "How has women's art practices affected male artist social attitudes?"[15] Her resignation in 1982 is attributed, in part, to a dispute instigated by Andre over a collaborative art piece the couple had submitted. In a 2001 journal article, Kat Griefen, director of A.I.R from 2006 to 2011,[16] wrote,

The letter of resignation did not cite any reasons for her departure, but a number of fellow A.I.R. artists remember the related events. For a recent benefit Mendieta and Carl Andre had donated a collaborative piece. As was the policy, all works needed to be delivered by the artist. Edelson recalls that Andre took offense, instigating a disagreement, which, in part, led to Mendieta's resignation. Even without this incident, according to another member, Pat Lasch, Mendieta's association with the now legendary Andre surely played some role in her decision.[13]

In 1983, Mendieta was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. While in residence in Rome, Mendieta began creating art "objects", including drawings and sculptures.[17] She continued to use natural elements in her work.[18]

Silueta Series (1973–1980)

The Silueta Series (1973–1980) involved Mendieta creating female silhouettes in nature—in mud, sand, and grass—with natural materials ranging from leaves and twigs to blood, and making body prints or painting her outline or silhouette onto a wall.[19]

In a 1981 artist statement, Mendieta said:

I have been carrying out a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette). I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland (Cuba) during my adolescence. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source.[20]

When she began her Silueta Series in the 1970s, Mendieta was one of many artists experimenting with the emerging genres of land art, body art, and performance art. The films and photographs of Siluetas are in connection with the figures surrounding her body. Mendieta was possibly the first to combine these genres in what she called "earth-body" sculptures.[21] She often used her naked body to explore and connect with the Earth, as seen in her piece Imagen de Yagul, from the series Silueta Works in Mexico 1973–1977.[22] Mendieta's first use of blood to make art dates from 1972, when she performed Untitled (Death of a Chicken), for which she stood naked in front of a white wall holding a freshly decapitated chicken by its feet as its blood spattered her naked body.[23] Appalled by the brutal rape and murder of nursing student Sarah Ann Ottens at the University of Iowa, Mendieta smeared herself with blood and had herself tied to a table in 1973, inviting an audience in to bear witness in Untitled (Rape Scene).[24][25] Professor and art historian Kaira Cabañas writes about Untitled (Rape Scene):

Her body was the subject and object of the work. She used it to emphasize the societal conditions by which the female body is colonized as the object of male desire and ravaged under masculine aggression. Mendieta's corporeal presence demanded the recognition of a female subject. The previously invisible, unnamed victim of rape gained an identity. The audience was forced to reflect on its responsibility; its empathy was elicited and translated to the space of awareness in which sexual violence could be addressed.[4]

In a slide series, People Looking at Blood Moffitt (1973), she pours blood and rags on a sidewalk and photographs a seemingly endless stream of people walking by without stopping, until the man next door (the storefront window bears the name H. F. Moffitt) comes out to clean it up.[25]

Mendieta also created the female silhouette using nature as both her canvas and her medium. She used her body to create silhouettes in the grass; she created silhouettes in sand and dirt; she created silhouettes of fire and filmed them burning. Untitled (Ochún) (1981), named for the Santería goddess of waters, once pointed southward from the shore at Key Biscayne, Florida. Ñañigo Burial (1976), with a title taken from the popular name for an Afro-Cuban religious brotherhood, is a floor installation of black candles dripping wax in the outline of the artist's body.[2] Through these works, which cross the boundaries of performance, film, and photography, Mendieta explored her relationship with a place as well as a larger relationship with mother Earth or the "Great Goddess" figure.[11]

Mary Jane Jacob suggests in her exhibition catalog Ana Mendieta: The "Silueta" Series (1973–1980) that much of Mendieta's work was influenced by her interest in the religion Santería, as well as a connection to Cuba. Jacob attributes Mendieta's "ritualistic use of blood," and the use of gunpowder, earth, and rock to Santería's ritualistic traditions. [26]

Jacob also points out the significance of the mother figure, referring to the Mayan deity Ix Chel, the mother of the gods.[27] Many have interpreted Mendieta's recurring use of this mother figure, and her own female silhouette, as feminist art. However, because Mendieta's work explores many ideas including life, death, identity, and place all at once, it cannot be categorized as part of one idea or movement. Claire Raymond argues that the Silueta Series, as a photographic archive, should be read for its photographicity rather than merely as documentation of earthworks.[28]

In Corazon de Roca con Sangre (Rock Heart with Blood) (1975) Mendieta kneels next to an impression of her body that has been cut into the soft muddy riverbank.[7]

Photo etchings of the Rupestrian Sculptures (1981)

As documented in the book Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works, edited by Bonnie Clearwater, before her death, Mendieta was working on a series of photo-etchings of cave sculptures she had created at Escaleras de Jaruco, Jaruco State Park in Havana, Cuba.[29] Her sculptures were entitled Rupestrian Sculptures (1981)—the title refers to living among rocks[30]—and the book of photographic etchings that Mendieta was created to preserve these sculptures is a testament to the intertextuality of Mendieta's work. Clearwater explains how the photographs of Mendieta's sculptures were often as important as the piece they were documenting because the nature of Mendieta's work was so impermanent. Mendieta spent as much time and thought on the creation of the photographs as she did on the sculptures themselves.[29]

Mendieta returned to Havana, the place of her birth, for this project, but she was still exploring her sense of displacement and loss, according to Clearwater.[31] The Rupestrian Sculptures that Mendieta created were also influenced by the Taíno people, "native inhabitants of the pre-Hispanic Antilles," which Mendieta became fascinated by and studied.[32]

Mendieta had completed five photo-etchings of the Rupestrian Sculptures before she died in 1985. The book Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works, published in 1993, contains both photographs of the sculptures as well as Mendieta's notes on the project.[33]

Body Tracks (1982)

Body Tracks (Rastros Corporales) debuted on April 8, 1982, in Franklin Furnace in New York City.[34] The tracks are long, blurry marks made by Mendieta on a large piece of white paper attached to a wall. While recordings of the sacred music of Afro-Cuban Santeria are heard,[4] Mendieta dipped her hands and forearms into a mixture of tempura paint and animal blood, pressed her hands and arms firmly to its surface and slid down towards the floor.[34][35]

The performance was documented in the 1987 film Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra[36], and described by scholar Alexandra Gonzenbach:

In the short piece, the artist enters the studio space, while Cuban music plays in the background. She dips her hands and forearms into animal blood, places her back to the camera, lifts her arms and places them on a large sheet of white paper attached to a wall, and then proceeds to slowly drag her arms down the page, until almost reaching the bottom. She then walks off screen and out of the performance space. The camera, documentation, and performance stops.[37]

The resultant pieces of paper were preserved by the artist after the event, and appear now as works of art in their own right in the collection of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.[34] A still photo from the exhibit was the cover art of the Third Woman Press edition of the feminist anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (2002, ISBN 0943219221)

Film works (1971–1980)

Though well known for her photographs, Mendieta's experimentations with film rose to critical acclaim on the occasion of the 2016 exhibition "Ana Mendieta: Experimental and Interactive Films" at Galerie Lelong, New York.[38][39]

• Creek (1974)[40]
  • This film builds on the Shakespearean character of Ophelia. It was shot in San Felipe Creek, Oaxaca, Mexico. In the film, Mendieta merges with the water.[41]
• Ochún (1981)[40]
  • Mendieta filmed Ochun in Key Biscayne, Florida. It is about the Santería goddess, Ochún- the Orisha of the river. It features sand silhouettes, seagull sounds, ocean waves, and emphasizes themes of longing for another land. It was her last film.[41]
• Chicken Movie, Chicken Piece (1972)
• Parachute (1973)
• Moffitt Building Piece (1973)
• Grass Breathing (1974)
• Dog (1974)
• Mirage (1974)
• Weather Balloon, Feathered Balloon (1974)
• Silueta Sangrienta (1975)
• Energy Charge (1975)[40]

Film works released posthumously (1985–present)

The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC, and family members found several films after her death while looking for work to be included in a retrospective at the New Museum in 1987. In 2016, more films were uncovered and digitized in anticipation of a documentary directed by the artist's niece, Raquel Cecilia Mendieta.[42][43] As of 2019, that film, Rebel By Nature, is in post-production.[44]

• Pain of Cuba/Body I Am (2018)
• The Earth That Covers Us Speaks (2018)

Exhibitions and collections

Mendieta presented a solo exhibition of her photographs at A.I.R. Gallery in New York in 1979.[1] She also curated and wrote the introductory catalog essay for an exhibition at A.I.R. in 1981 entitled Dialectics of Isolation: An Exhibition of Third World Women Artists of the United States, which featured the work of artists such as Judy Baca, Senga Nengudi, Howardena Pindell, and Zarina.[45] The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York hosted Mendieta's first survey exhibition in 1987. Since her death, Mendieta has been recognized with international solo museum retrospectives such as "Ana Mendieta", Art Institute of Chicago (2011); and "Ana Mendieta in Context: Public and Private Work", De La Cruz Collection, Miami (2012).[46] In 2004 the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., organized "Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance", a major retrospective that travelled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, and Miami Art Museum, Florida (2004).[1]

Mendieta's work features in many major public collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; and Tate Collection, London.[46]

Death and controversy

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, where she lived with her husband of eight months, minimalist sculptor Carl Andre, who may have pushed her out of the window.[47] She fell 33 stories onto the roof of a deli.[48] Just prior to her death, neighbors heard the couple arguing violently.[30] There were no eyewitnesses to the events that led up to Mendieta's death.[49] 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."[50] In 1988, Andre was tried and acquitted of her murder. During three years of legal proceedings,[49] Andre's lawyer described Mendieta's death as a possible accident or suicide. The judge found Andre not guilty on grounds of reasonable doubt.[50]

The acquittal caused an uproar among feminists in the art world, and remains controversial to this day. In 2010, a symposium called Where Is Ana Mendieta? was held at New York University to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her death.[51] 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.[52] 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.[53] In April 2017, protesters at an Andre retrospective handed out cards at the Geffen Contemporary 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 MOCA Director Philippe Vergne protesting the exhibit from the group the Association of Hysteric Curators.[54]

Legacy

In 2009, Mendieta was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Cintas Foundation.[1] Ana Mendieta's estate is currently managed by the Galerie Lelong in New York City.[55] The estate is also represented by Alison Jacques Gallery, London.[56] In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her that began, "Mendieta's art, sometimes violent, often unapologetically feminist and usually raw, left an indelible mark before her life was cut short."[57] In 2010 she was the subject of Richard Move's controversial Where is Ana Mendieta? 25 Years Later - An Exhibition and Symposium, which included his film, BloodWork - The Ana Mendieta Story.

See also

• Ecofeminist art
• Environmental art
• Feminist art movement in the United States
• Land art
• List of unsolved deaths
• Performance art

References

1. Ana Mendieta Archived April 15, 2013, at Archive.today Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
2. Camhi, Leslie (June 20, 2004). "ART; Her Body, Herself". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
3. Roulet, Laura. "Esculturas Rupestres and other Works by Ana Mendieta." Cuba, edited by Alan West-Durán, vol. 1, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2012, pp. 270–274. Scribner World Scholar Series. Gale Ebooks, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX1500500086/GVRL?u=cuny_laguardia&sid=GVRL&xid=492e563e. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
4. Cabañas, Kaira (1999). "Ana Mendieta: "Pain of Cuba, Body I Am"". Woman's Art Journal. 20 (1): 12–17. doi:10.2307/1358840. JSTOR 1358840.
5. Frank, Priscilla (March 7, 2016). "The Life Of Forgotten Feminist Artist Ana Mendieta, As Told By Her Sister". HuffPost. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
6. O'Hagan, Sean (September 21, 2013). "Ana Mendieta: death of an artist foretold in blood | Art and design". The Guardian. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
7. "Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
8. Viso, Olga (2004). Ana Mendieta: Earth Body. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Publishers.
9. Blocker, Jane (1999). Where Is Ana Mendieta?: Identity, Performativity, and Exile. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 0822323044.
10. Ramos, E. Carmen (2014). our america. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. ISBN 9781907804441.
11. Blocker, Jane. Where Is Ana Mendieta?: Identity, Performativity, and Exile. Duke University Press, May 1999. p. 47–48.
12. Manzor, Lillian. "Performing Arts: Performance Art." Cuba, edited by Alan West-Durán, vol. 2, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2012, pp. 732–735. Scribner World Scholar Series. Gale Ebooks, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX1500500224/GVRL?u=cuny_laguardia&sid=GVRL&xid=c061db2b. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
    
13. Griefen, Kat (2011). "Ana Mendieta at A.I.R. Gallery, 1977–82". Women & Performance. 21 (2): 171–181. doi:10.1080/0740770X.2011.607595.
14. Butler Schwartz, Cornelia Alexandra (2010). Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. p. 389.
15. Sneed, Gillian (October 12, 2010). "The Case of Ana Mendieta". Art in America. Retrieved February 12, 2015.
16. "Our Members – Kat Griefen « AWAD – Association of Women Art Dealers". Retrieved May 22, 2019.
17. Sabbatino, Mary (2011). Ana Mendieta: Blood & Fire. New York: Galerie Lelong. p. 73. ISBN 978-2868820976.
18. Ana Mendieta : earth body : sculpture and performance, 1972-1985 (1st ed.). Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. pp. 181, 237. ISBN 3775713956.
19. Perry, Gill (2003). "The expanding field: Ana Mendieta's Silueta series". Frameworks for Modern Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 153–201. ISBN 0-300-10228-3.
20. Manchester, Elizabeth (October 2009). "Untitled (Silueta Series, Mexico)". Tate Etc. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
21. Jacob, Mary Jane. "Ana Mendieta: The "Silueta" Series, 1973–1980." Galerie Lelong, 1991. p. 3. "Creating her own style of body art and earth art that she early on called earth-body sculptures" LCCN 91-077297.
22. Perry, Gill (2003). Gaiger, Jason (ed.). The Expanding Field: Ana Mendieta's Silueta Series in Frameworks for Modern Art. London: Yale University Press. p. 172. ISBN 9780300102284.
23. Imagen de Yagul, from the series Silueta Works in Mexico 1973–1977. Archived October 16, 2015, at the Wayback Machine SF MoMA.
24. Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Rape Scene) (1973) Tate Modern, London.
25. Kay Larson (February 16, 2001), Vito Acconci and Ana Mendieta – 'A Relationship Study, 1969–1976', The New York Times.
26. Jacob, Mary Jane. "Ana Mendieta: The "Silueta" Series, 1973–1980." Galerie Lelong, 1991. pp. 4, 10, 17. "[p. 4:] Santeria was a source of inspiration for Mendieta. More than any other cultural reference to which she turned, Santeria's precepts enabled her to create a conceptual framework for her art ... It was a means through which she could also express her relationship to Cuba, nature, and the spiritual realm ... [p. 14:] [In Santaria, blood] is a symbol of life ... Mendieta continued in 1973 the ritualistic use of blood ... [p. 17:] Some of Mendieta's materials can also be linked to Santeria. Gunpowder, which she had intuitively begun to use to burn her silhouette into the earth, trees, or rock, is employed in Santeria rituals to make mystic ground drawings and summon the spirits."
27. Jacob, Mary Jane. "Ana Mendieta: The "Silueta" Series, 1973–1980." Galerie Lelong, 1991. p. 14. "In recapturing spirits close to her own origins, Mendieta also turned to Ix Chel, a Mayan deity considered to be Our Mother, the mother of the gods and the patron saint of women and goddess of childbirth."
28. Raymond, Claire (April 21, 2017). Women Photographers and Feminist Aesthetics. doi:10.4324/9781315628912. ISBN 9781315628912.
29. Clearwater, Bonnie, ed. Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works. Grassfield Press, November 1993. p. 11.
30. William Wilson (February 18, 1998), Haunting Works From Cuban Exile Mendieta Los Angeles Times.
31. Clearwater, Bonnie, ed. Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works. Grassfield Press, November 1993. p. 18.
32. Clearwater, Bonnie, ed. Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works. Grassfield Press, November 1993. p. 12.
33. Clearwater, Bonnie, ed., Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works. Grassfield Press, November 1993. p. 20.
34. Walker, Joanna (2009). "The Body is Present Even if in Disguise: Tracing the Trace in the Artwork of Nancy Spero and Ana Mendieta". Tate Papers, no. 11. ISSN 1753-9854. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
35. Cathy Curtis (March 20, 1989), Mendieta Exhibit Reveals Lush, Primal Power Los Angeles Times.
36. Nereyda Garcla-Ferraz, Kate Horsfield, and Branda Miller, dir. (1987). Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra (DVD) (in English and Spanish). Women Make Movies. OCLC 1043357237. Order No. 99249.
37. Gozenbach, Alexandra (2011). "Bleeding Borders: Abjection in the works of Ana Mendieta and Gina Pane". Letras Femeninas. 37 (1): 12–17.
38. "Ana Mendieta: Experimental and Interactive Films. February 5, 2016 – March 26, 2016". Galerie Lelong. Archived from the original on April 5, 2016. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
39. Randy Kennedy, "A Word With: Raquelin Mendieta". The New York Times, February 4, 2016.
40. "Mirage. The Films of Ana Mendieta – Harvard Film Archive". library.harvard.edu. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
41. Morrissey, Siobhan, Museum mounts first-ever full exhibit of the works of Ana Mendieta [Miami Herald], March 18, 2016
42. "After More Than 30 Years, Ana Mendieta's Films Are Digitized | BLOUIN ARTINFO". www.blouinartinfo.com. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
43. Ben Davis, VIDEO: Ana Mendieta's Niece Gets Candid About the Artist's Film Works, [Artnet], March 24, 2016
44. Rebel by Nature, retrieved May 22, 2019
45. Lovelace, Carey. "Aloft in Mid A.I.R." A.I.R. Gallery. Archived from the original on May 12, 2013. Retrieved March 14, 2014.
46. Ana Mendieta Alison Jacques Gallery, London.
47. Carl Swanson (April 1, 2012), Maximum Outrage Over Minimalist Sculptor New York.
48. Sean O'Hagan (September 21, 2013), Ana Mendieta: death of an artist foretold in blood The Guardian.
49. Vincent Patrick (June 10, 1990), A Death In The Art World The New York Times.
50. Sullivan, Ron (February 12, 1988). "Greenwich Village Sculptor Acquitted of Pushing Wife to Her Death". The New York Times. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
51. Sneed, Gillian (October 12, 2010). "The Case of Ana Mendieta". Art in America. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
52. Steinhauer, Jill (May 20, 2014). "Artists Protest Carl Andre Retrospective With Blood Outside Dia: Chelsea". Hyperallergic. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
53. Crawford, Marisa (March 10, 2015). "Crying for Ana Mendieta at the Carl Andre Retrospective". Hyperallergic.com.
54. Miranda, Carolina (April 6, 2017). "Why protesters at MOCA's Carl Andre show won't let the art world forget about Ana Mendieta". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
55. ARC. "Galerie Lelong presents 'Ana Mendieta: Experimental and Interactive Films'". arcthemagazine.com. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
56. "Ana Mendieta". Alison Jacques Gallery. Retrieved March 24, 2019.
57. "Overlooked No More: Ana Mendieta, a Cuban Artist Who Pushed Boundaries". The New York Times. September 19, 2018. Retrieved October 1, 2018.

Further reading

• Best, Susan, "The Serial Spaces of Ana Mendieta" Art History, April 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8365.2007.00532.x
• Best, Susan, "Ana Mendieta: Affect Miniatiarizatin, Emotional Ties and the Silueta Series," Visualizing Feeling: Affect and the Feminine Avant-Garde (London: I B Tauris, 2011) 92–115 ISBN 9781780767093
• Del Valle, Alejandro (2015). "Primitivism in the Art of Ana Mendieta". PhD. Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Retrieved July 8, 2017.
• Del Valle, Alejandro. "Ana Mendieta: Performance in the way of the primitive". Arte, Individuo y Sociedad, 26 (1) 508–523
• "Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972–1985." Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc.
• Ana Mendieta: New Museum archive
• Cabañas, Kaira M. "Ana Mendieta: 'Pain of Cuba, body I Am.'" Woman's Art Journal 20, no. 1 (1999): 12–17.
• Camhi, Leslie. "ART; Her Body, Herself". The New York Times 2004-06-20.
• Crawford, Marisa. "Crying for Ana Mendieta at the Carl Andre Retrospective." Hyperallergic. 2015
• Gopnik, Blake. "'Silueta' of A Woman: Sizing Up Ana Mendieta." The Washington Post p. N01. 2004-10-17.
• Heartney, Eleanor. "Rediscovering Ana Mendieta." Art in America 92, no. 10 (2004): 139–143.
• Howard, Christopher. "Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance, 1972–1985." Art Book 12, no. 2 (May 2005): 21–22. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed November 29, 2014).
• Herrera, Gretel. Las huellas de Ana Mendieta. Fundación Cultural Enrique Loynaz, Santo Domingo. (Spanish)
• Katz, Robert. Naked by the Window: The Fatal Marriage of Carl Andre and Ana Mendieta. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990.
• Kwon, Miwon. "Bloody Valentines: Afterimages by Ana Mendieta." In: Catherine de Zegher (ed.), Inside the Visible. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston & MIT Press, 1996.
• "Making Sense of Modern Art" The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
• Moure, Gloria et al. Ana Mendieta. Poligrafa, April 2, 2001.
• Oransky, Howard, Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta, University of California Press, 2015 ISBN 0520288017
• Patrick, Vincent. "A Death in the Art World." The New York Times 1990-06-10. p. 428.
• Perreault, John and Petra Barreras del Rio. Ana Mendieta: A Retrospective. The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1987.
• Raine, Anne. "Embodied Geographies: Subjectivity and Materiality in the Work of Ana Mendieta." In Feminist Approaches to Theory and Methodology: An Interdisciplinary Reader, edited by Sharlene Hesse-Biber, Christina Gilmartin, and Robin Lydenberg, 259–286. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Rauch, Heidi, and Federico Suro. "Ana Mendieta's Primal Scream." Américas 44, no.5 (1992): 44–48.
• Szymanek, Angelique. "Bloody Pleasures: Ana Mendieta's Violent Tableaux," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 41, no. 4 (Summer 2016): 895–925
• Viso, Olga. Ana Mendieta: Earth Body. Hatje Cantz in collaboration with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2004.
• Viso, Olga. Unseen Mendieta: The Unpublished Works of Ana Mendieta. New York: Prestel, 2008.
• Walker, Joanna, "The body is present even if in disguise: tracing the trace in the art work of Nancy Spero and Ana Mendieta". Tate Papers, Spring 2009.
• Ana Mendieta Exhibition at Fundació Antoni Tàpies
• Redfern, Christine et al. Who is Ana Mendieta? Feminist Press, 2011.