Artist, Ana Mendieta, narrates as corresponding images of her work in both still and moving images highlight her themes and meanings behind her work.
self
This beautiful film is a portrait of the life and work of Cuban-born American artist Ana Mendieta. Mendieta used her own body, the raw materials of nature, and Afro-Cuban religion to express her feminist political consciousness and poetic vision. Interview footage with Mendieta and her own filmed records of her earthworks and performances are incorporated to render a vivid testament to her energy and extraordinary talent after her tragic, untimely death in 1985.
Director
"Esculturas Rupestres (Rupestrian Sculptures)" was made in Jaruco Park outside of Havana. The low relief sculptures that resembled petroglyphs, were influenced by Ana Mendieta’s interest in the indigenous Taíno people of Cuba.
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Ana Mendieta, 1981
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Film by Ana Mendieta, 1981
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Mendietas last film was made off the coast of Florida, the silhouette points to Cuba, while the tropical waters undulate around the sandy earthwork.
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Film by Ana Mendieta, 1981
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United States / Cuba 1981, Super 8 transferred to digital, black and white, silent, 2 min
Director
Some of the films are presented in tandem in darkened interiors that resemble the caves where Mendieta sculpted some of her final works. One film depicts the artist lying naked in a creek, suggesting cleansing and rebirth. In another film, "Keane College Volcano" at Galerie Lelong, the wind is gently stirring a mound of ash that swirls up from a stone form's breast. The bluish powder twirls up and teasingly dissipates. This breathless little dance,this choreographed chance of the elements is the best. Ana Mendieta may have written her name on the earth in disappearing ink, but she did it so well that we can't erase it.
Director
1. Sweating Blood, November 1973
2. Blood Writing, February 1974
3. Body Tracks, March 1974
4. Burial Pyramid, Summer 1974
5. Untitled, Summer 1974
6. Flower Silueta No. 2, June 1975
7. Alma Silueta En Fuego No. 2, November 1975
8. Silueta de Arena, August 1978
9. Isla, 1981
10. Filmworks, August 1980
11. Esculturas Rupestres, June 1981
12. Anima, 1976
13. Fire Silueta
14. Untitled Silueta
15. Esculturas Rupestres, June 1981 (either mislabelled, or split into two parts or outtakes)
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Featured in Ana Mendieta's "Selected Performance Works"
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Film by Ana Mendieta, 1980
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United States 1980, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 4 min
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Ana Mendieta, 1979
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Film by Ana Mendieta
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United States 1979, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min
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Director
Sand and water meet in a glimmering silhouette.
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Film by Ana Mendieta, 1978
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United States 1978, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min
Director
In Ana Mendieta’s Anima, Silueta de Cohetes (Firework Piece), the artist’s silhouetted form is replicated as an effigy with blazing fireworks, the flickering embers gradually extinguishing until there is but a single spark left to stave off total darkness.
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Film by Ana Mendieta
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A film by Ana Mendieta
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In X-Ray, Ana Mendieta uses a Cinefluorography unit, a medical tool usually employed for diagnostic and research procedures. In Mendieta’s hands, she takes us inside her own head, filming her own X-Rayed skull while talking.
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A 1975 work, Butterfly makes use of polarized graphic effects as Ana Mendieta's spectral body sprouts iridescent wings.
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An elemental film of flesh, blood, earth and water, Ana Mendieta’s Silueta Sangrienta depicts the artist’s reposing body on the ground, its trick disappearance, and crimson blood filling its indent before Mendieta’s prone figure returns.
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Ana Mendieta, 1975
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Ana Mendieta, 1975
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A ritual brings the stone heart to life.
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United States 1975, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 6 min
Director
Blood Inside Outside, demonstrates the pioneering feminist artist’s exploration of the multiple layers of meaning ascribed to blood—from death to rebirth. This presentation of the film by the late artist (Cuban, 1948-1985) is accompanied by rare lifetime photographs from the artist’s Body Tracks series as well as her elegant drawings of abstracted outlines of palaeolithic goddesses, repeatedly inscribed on a variety of surfaces, from modern paper to an actual leaf to an ancient style of bark cloth.
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United States c.1974, Super 8 film transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min
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United States 1974, Super 8 film transferred to digital, colour, silent, 4 min
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United States / Mexico 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min
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United States / Mexico 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 4 min
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United States / Mexico 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min
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United States 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 1 min
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United States 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min
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A self-portrait, Mirage exposes Mendieta's naked body in nature reflected in a mirror. She holds a gourd and stabs it open to let its seeds fly away.
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Ana Mendieta, 1974
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A dead tree. A body. Ocean waves.
A dead tree. A body. Ocean waves.
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Mendieta, Ana: Burial Pyramide, Yagul, Mexico.
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A film by Ana Mendieta
Writer
Considered to be the first of Ana Mendieta's video, performance and film based pieces responding to the death and murder of Sara Ann Otten on March 13 of 1973.
Director
Considered to be the first of Ana Mendieta's video, performance and film based pieces responding to the death and murder of Sara Ann Otten on March 13 of 1973.
Director
Captures students at Henry Sabin Elementary School in Iowa City holding a circular parachute and pulling down to catch the air's resistance.
Director
Object
A woman stripped from the waist down and bent over a table. Blood is smeared over and drips down her buttocks, thighs and calves and a pool of it is partially visible on the dark floor beside her feet. The scene is dramatically lit, highlighting her legs, the side of her body and the table, and casting strong shadows onto the wall behind her. Her head and her arms, which are tied to the table, are not visible in the darkness; broken crockery and bloodied clothes disappear into the shadows on the floor to her right.
Art Designer
A woman stripped from the waist down and bent over a table. Blood is smeared over and drips down her buttocks, thighs and calves and a pool of it is partially visible on the dark floor beside her feet. The scene is dramatically lit, highlighting her legs, the side of her body and the table, and casting strong shadows onto the wall behind her. Her head and her arms, which are tied to the table, are not visible in the darkness; broken crockery and bloodied clothes disappear into the shadows on the floor to her right.
Cinematography
A woman stripped from the waist down and bent over a table. Blood is smeared over and drips down her buttocks, thighs and calves and a pool of it is partially visible on the dark floor beside her feet. The scene is dramatically lit, highlighting her legs, the side of her body and the table, and casting strong shadows onto the wall behind her. Her head and her arms, which are tied to the table, are not visible in the darkness; broken crockery and bloodied clothes disappear into the shadows on the floor to her right.
Writer
A woman stripped from the waist down and bent over a table. Blood is smeared over and drips down her buttocks, thighs and calves and a pool of it is partially visible on the dark floor beside her feet. The scene is dramatically lit, highlighting her legs, the side of her body and the table, and casting strong shadows onto the wall behind her. Her head and her arms, which are tied to the table, are not visible in the darkness; broken crockery and bloodied clothes disappear into the shadows on the floor to her right.
Director
A woman stripped from the waist down and bent over a table. Blood is smeared over and drips down her buttocks, thighs and calves and a pool of it is partially visible on the dark floor beside her feet. The scene is dramatically lit, highlighting her legs, the side of her body and the table, and casting strong shadows onto the wall behind her. Her head and her arms, which are tied to the table, are not visible in the darkness; broken crockery and bloodied clothes disappear into the shadows on the floor to her right.
Director
Director
United States 1972, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 7 min
Director
Untitled is the first of over 100 films created by Ana Mendieta. By scratching and painting directly onto the film’s emulsion, she formed a filmic painting of fields of dancing colors, comprised of vibrant strokes of blue and splashes of red. Though Mendieta experimented with various technical processes, this is the only moving-image work in which she manipulated the film’s surface.
Director
A film by Ana Mendieta
