Ana Mendieta, 18 Nov 1948 - 8 Sep 1985 Search this
Sitter:
Ana Mendieta, 18 Nov 1948 - 8 Sep 1985 Search this
Medium:
Super-8mm film (color, silent); transferred to digital
Dimensions:
Duration: 3:58 min.
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Type:
Time-Based Media
Place:
United States\Iowa
Date:
1974
Exhibition Label:
Born Havana, Cuba
By the early 1970s, Ana Mendieta had become a driving force in postwar American art. Through her feminist practice, she helped shape the era’s multimedia tendencies by interweaving earth-body art, sculpture, performance, and video. Mendieta and her peers denounced the art establishment for favoring white male artists, and they resolved to abandon the art market and focus on art’s symbolic value instead of its monetary worth.
A self-portrait, Mirage exposes Mendieta’s naked body in nature through mirror reflection. She stabs open a prosthetic pregnant belly, releasing feathers into the wind. Mendieta arrived in the United States at age twelve under the program Operation Peter Pan, which in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution placed Cuban children in American foster homes. Through her art, she aimed to re-establish a bond with Mother Nature, from whose womb she had been metaphorically cast out when she was forced into exile.
Nacida en La Habana, Cuba
En la década de 1970, Ana Mendieta era ya una influencia importante en el arte estadounidense de posguerra. Con su práctica feminista contribuyó a las tendencias multimedia de la época, fusionando arte de “cuerpo y tierra”, escultura, performance y video. Ella y sus colegas denunciaron al establishment por favorecer a los artistas hombres y blancos, y decidieron abandonar el mercado para centrarse en el valor simbólico —no monetario— del arte.
En su autorretrato Espejismo, Mendieta muestra su cuerpo desnudo en la naturaleza, reflejado en un espejo. La artista apuñala un vientre prostético del que brotan plumas. Mendieta llegó a EE.UU. a los 12 años con Operación Peter Pan, programa que tras la Revolución Cubana trajo niños de Cuba a hogares de acogida norteamericanos. A través de su arte, Mendieta aspiraba a restablecer su vínculo con la madre naturaleza, de cuyo vientre había sido expul- sada metafóricamente por el exilio.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquisition made possible through the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.
