{"id":693139,"date":"2026-07-15T14:46:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693139\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T14:46:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:46:20","slug":"experience-ana-mendietas-visceral-neolithic-work-in-a-major-survey-colossal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693139\/","title":{"rendered":"Experience Ana Mendieta’s Visceral, ‘Neolithic’ Work in a Major Survey \u2014 Colossal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rarely do artists conceive of work that is prescient and, decades on, more urgent than when it was created. One who has accomplished this is certainly Ana Mendieta<\/a> (1948-1985), whose interdisciplinary practice merged photography, land art, sculpture, film, and more. And in a large-scale, immersive survey of her work that opens today at Tate Modern<\/a>, more than 120 pieces revisit the groundbreaking artist\u2019s key series and empathetic exchange with land and nature.<\/p>\n

Mendieta is best known for her Silueta Series, in which she impressed the shape of the human body in water, mud, rock, and forests. These sometimes consisted of outlines \u201cdrawn\u201d onto surfaces, such as a gunpowder tribute on a fallen tree, which exists eternally half-ablaze in a photograph. Others are impressed directly into the earth, as if a person had been lying there for millennia as the desert or stone formed around her.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cIm\u00e1gen de Y\u00e1gul\u201d (1973). \u00a9 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ DACS, 2026. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery and Alison Jacques, London<\/p>\n

In what she described as \u201cearth-body\u201d works, Mendieta explored vital relationships between humans and nature, absence and presence, experience and temporality, and place and identity. She often turned the lens on herself, building compositions that plumb the tensions between beauty, ruggedness, vulnerability, and strength. Her practice can easily be viewed through the lens of ecofeminism<\/a>, a movement that emerged around the same time Mendieta was working, but it is also profoundly personal.<\/p>\n

At 12 years old, Mendieta was separated from her parents and brother, who remained in her home country of Cuba, when she and her sister were exiled to the U.S. following the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Throughout her life and brief career<\/a>, she grappled with themes of displacement and disconnection. \u201cMy art is the way I reestablish the bonds that unite me to the Universe,\u201d Mendieta said. \u201cIt is a return to the maternal source.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also humor in her approach to self-representation, such as her early series of self-portraits in which she documented her wet hair in wild, sculptural forms or produced a sequential series of images in which an arrangement of flowers gradually conceals her face. Within a few years, the work adopted a more solemn, enigmatic tone, characterized by voids, organic forms, gesture, and ephemerality.<\/p>\n

Mendieta also drew on her fascination with archaeology to create multimedia works that delved into the relationship between humans and the land. \u201cMy work is basically in the tradition of a Neolithic art,\u201d she said in 1984. \u201cI\u2019m not interested in the formal qualities of my materials, but their emotional and sensual ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cLa Vivificaci\u00f3n de la Carne: El Laberinto de Venus Series (The Vivification of the Flesh: Labyrinth of Venus Series)\u201d (1982), installation view at Tate Modern, 2026. Artwork \u00a9 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ DACS 2026. Photo \u00a9 Tate (Yilli Liu)<\/p>\n

The artist\u2019s interest in the ancient past ultimately lends a timelessness to themes that resonate through her personal narrative but also, incidentally, the ills of the present. One might think of our screen-fueled social discord and the accelerating climate crisis, both also defined by a sense of alienation and disjointedness. Though Mendieta couldn\u2019t have conceived of these things as we experience them today, she nevertheless tapped into a kind of visceral biophilia that\u2019s more critical than ever. The exhibition at Tate highlights not only the artist\u2019s the desire to connect with nature but also casts a light on how far removed from it most of us have become.<\/p>\n

Ana Mendieta continues through January 17, 2027, in London. Plan your visit on Tate\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cUntitled: Silueta Series\u201d (1976). \u00a9 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ DACS, 2026. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery and Alison Jacques, London<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cUntitled\u201d (c.1984). \u00a9 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ DACS, 2026. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery and Alison Jacques, London<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cUntitled\u201d (1973). \u00a9 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ DACS, 2026. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery and Alison Jacques, London<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u2018Ana Mendieta\u2019 installation view at Tate Modern, 2026. Artworks \u00a9 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ DACS 2026. Photo \u00a9 Tate (Yili Liu)<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cUntitled\u201d (1972). \u00a9 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ DACS, 2026. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery and Alison Jacques, London<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>\u201cUntitled (Guanaroca [First Woman])\u201d (1981). \u00a9 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ DACS, 2026 \/ Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery and Alison Jacques, London<\/p>\n

\"an<\/a>\u201c\u00d1a\u00f1igo Burial\u201d (1976). \u00a9 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ DACS, 2026. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery and Alison Jacques, London. Photo Alex Yudzon<\/p>\n

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