Portrait of Ana Mendieta
Source: www.as-coa.org
Ana Mendieta was reportedly alone in her home with her husband Carl Andres when police responded to 300 Mercer Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan after her body went out the window of their 34th story apartment.
After a three year court case, Carl Andres was acquitted of charges of murder in Ana's death and still resides at 300 Mercer Street in the apartment they shared with his new wife. Many believe he is responsible for Ana's death, and that she would never have taken her own life. She feared heights. She had a promising career ahead of her.
She loved him.
Ana grew up in Iowa after being relocated to the United States from Cuba when she was twelve years old. She was a talented Sculptress, and performance artist on the cusp of beginning to experience career success in New York. After her father joined the Cuban rebel army, and was thus placed in a prison camp for eighteen years to follow, Ana's work in the United States gradually took on a fusion of the two cultures she experienced in the formidable years of her growth. She utilized the Cuban traditions she had grown up with, along with what she had learned in her education in Iowa, and additional experiences shaped her work when she traveled to Mexico and Europe. With the financial backing of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts grant she moved herself to New York city, sometimes living in Rome, to pursue a career in the fine arts. Her work primarily focused on minimalist abstract natural sculpture with a performance quality to it. Though her work was not well known during her lifetime, she has become an inspiration for many since her death. She is an icon in the feminist art movement.
Azy and I try to make contact with as many of the people we are honoring in our book as we possibly can. In the event of not being able to honor Ana personally, we reached out to an artist in New York honoring the memory of Ana, responsible for coordinating a group of individuals who advocate for Ana's work to remain in galleries where Andres' work remains displayed. The captions, "Where is Ana?" and "I wish Ana Mendieta was still alive" are brief but powerful statements Christen Clifford and the dedicated groups of Ana's supporters often utilize to reinforce their feelings of loss, but also frustration that galleries continue to support the work of Carl Andres, while seemingly forgetting about Ana. We met with Christen at 300 Mercer Street to spend some time talking about Ana's work and what her legacy means to the three of us. We presented Christen with our gift of appreciation for keeping Ana's memory alive, and spent a bit of time in appreciation of womanhood.
Christen is an incredible woman herself, and an extremely talented artist. We sincerely appreciate that she devotes so much of herself to keeping Ana's memory alive. We were very happy to share with her that we look to do the same by including Ana as a cherished hero in our book. Below are links for more information on both Ana and on Christen. We encourage you to look further into their work.
Christen, thank you for your time, your passion for Ana's work and memory, and for your friendship! We look forward to placing this book in your hands, and seeing your sweet smiling face again!
Ana Mendieta's Work:
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/ana-mendieta
https://www.theartstory.org/artist-mendieta-ana.htm
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/obituaries/ana-mendieta-overlooked.html
Christen Clifford's Work:
http://www.projectforemptyspace.org/christen-clifford/
http://www.smithmag.net/memoirville/2009/05/06/my-home-birth-a-graphic-graphic-memoir-by-christen-clifford-and-david-heatley/
An article written about Christen's advocacy of Ana's work:
https://artreview.com/features/ar_april_2018_feature_ana_mendieta/
We're happy to see that Ana and her work are receiving some of the attention she and it finally deserve. There was a recent screening of several short films by Ana in advance of an exhibition Lydia Cabrera and Édouard Glissant: Trembling Thinking, at Americas Society in New York on December 6th, 2018:
https://www.as-coa.org/events/film-screening-ana-mendieta?fbclid=IwAR2vs6TO6vBHC2y_BZkhJNlUhvowyuknlZuWmMNWYSCSIuYxoBDyEklTmh0
