Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-born artist who lived in exile in the United States, was one of the most provocative & complex personalities of the 1970s' art-world. In Where Is Ana Mendieta? art historian Jane Blocker provides an in-depth critical analysis of Mendieta's diverse body of work. Although her ...
Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-born artist who lived in exile in the United States, was one of the most provocative & complex personalities of the 1970s' art-world. In Where Is Ana Mendieta? art historian Jane Blocker provides an in-depth critical analysis of Mendieta's diverse body of work. Although her untimely death in 1985 remains shrouded in controversy, her life & artistic legacy provide a unique vantage point from which to consider the history of performance art, installation, & earth works, as well as feminism, multiculturalism, & postmodernism. Taken from banners carried in a 1992 protest outside the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the title phrase "Where is Ana Mendieta?" evokes not only the suspicious & tragic circumstances surrounding her death but also the conspicuous absence of women artists from high-profile exhibitions. Drawing on the work of such theorists as Judith Butler, Joseph Roach, Edward Said, & Homi Bhabha, Blocker discusses the power of Mendieta's earth-&-body art to alter, unsettle, & broaden the terms of identity itself. She shows how Mendieta used exile as a discursive position from which to disrupt dominant categories, analyzing as well Mendieta's use of mythology & anthropology, the ephemeral nature of her media, & the debates over her ethnic, gender, & national identities. As the first major critical examination of this enigmatic artist's work, Where Is Ana Mendieta? will interest a broad audience, particularly those involved with the production, criticism, theory, & history of contemporary art.