Ana Mendieta

Galerie Lelong, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Santiago de Compostela, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Ana Mendieta, July - October 1996, cat. no. 17, p. 55, illustrated in color
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; Washington D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Des Moines Art Center; Miami Art Museum, Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972-1985, July 2004 - January 2006, p. 203, illustrated in color

In 1969, Michael Heizer stated that ‘Art had to be radical. It had to become American.” (Anne Raine, “Embodied Geographies: Subjectivity and Materiality in the work of Ana Mendieta, Generations and Geographies in the Visual Arts, London, 1996, p. 232).  One measure of this progressive radicalism as translated in art was the movement towards outdoor sites and earthworks. Thus the fertile landscape was carved for the work of Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta, whose profound religious association with the earth is transcribed.  Throughout the 1970’s, she enacted a series of private rituals which she called, “a dialogue between the landscape and the female body.”  

The present lot is the realized performance within a group of three images that document the 1975 performance, aptly titled, On Giving Life.  Whereas the first two images of the suite document Mendieta preparing for the performance, the present lot, reflects the performance itself.  The image captures a nude Mendieta covering the length of the skeleton with her female form and her breathing life into it. The flesh colored skull and extremities powerfully illustrate Mendieta's belief in the profound ability of the female as a life giving entity.

Thus Mendieta, becoming one with her art, proved herself far more a body artist than an earth artist: she perceived the body as a sacred space – in particular the female body as a life giving force. Accordingly, in 1984, when Linda Montano questioned Mendieta regarding her death imagery, she replied “I don’t think that you can separate death and life. All my work is about those two things -- about Eros and life/death.”  (Gloria Moure, Ana Mendieta, 1998, New York, p. 101)

comp:
On Giving Life
June – July 1975
Performance, Iowa
Estate of the Artist and Galerie Lelong, New York.