Art Metropole

#12888

Who Is Ana Mendieta?

Artists

Caro Caron and Christine Redfern

Date

2016

Publisher

Feminist Press

Format

Artists' Books

Size

18.5 × 23 × 0.9 cm

Length

58 pp

Genre

Comics & Graphic Novels

Description

This gripping graphic novel richly documents the tragically brief life of artist Ana Mendieta (18/11/1948 – 8/09/1985), her violent death & it’s aftermath.

Starting in 1973, Mendieta filmed her ephemeral earth-body sculptures and performances using photography and the latest video technology. Her subject was the female form, her subject matter the power and transience of life. Producing close to eighty films during her career, she is one of the most prolific filmmakers of her generation and a pioneer of the video art genre. She was also brown-skinned, female and an immigrant. Coming of age in the United States at the height of the feminist revolution and civil rights movement – everything, including equality, must have seemed possible.

In 1985, Mendieta married well-known Minimalist sculptor Carl Andre. Less than eight months later, already planning
to divorce him, she plunged from the 34th floor window of his Greenwich Village apartment. Though Andre (like O.J. Simpson) was acquitted of his wife’s murder, as Calvin Tomkins in the Dec. 5, 2011 issue of The New Yorker notes, “Except for initial confused and somewhat contradictory statements to the police, (Andre) never talked to anyone about Mendieta’s death.”

Mendieta’s art has grown more relevant with the passing of time. It reminds us we are not above nature, not separate from nature, not in control of nature – but one small part of nature. Her works are an attempt to move us beyond the male/ female, virtual/real, contemporary/ancient dichotomy, to a place that doesn’t separate us into what we are or aren’t, but instead connects us, from the micro to the macro, from the past to the present, to everything that surrounds us.

By Christine Redfern & Caro Caron
Introduction by Lucy R. Lippard
The Feminist Press, NY

Hardcover, perfect-bound, b&w.

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