An analysis of the career of Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-American feminist artist who came to prominence in the late 70s and early 80s, in terms of gender and performance theory.

This catalogue is published in conjunction with the exhibition Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta, organized by Lynn Lukkas and Howard Oransky for the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota.

Essays by Olga M. Viso, Guy Brett, Julia P. Herzberg, Chrissie Iles and Laura Roulet.

Published to accompany the exhibition held at Hayward Gallery 24 September - 15 December 2013, Museum der Moderne-Rupertinum, Salzburg 29 March- 6 July 2014.

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban-American artist who, in her tragically short career, made over 100 films in direct dialogue with her work in performance, sculpture and photography. Over two screenings, the series presents 27 of the over 100 film and video works made by the artist over a ten-year period. [The first] screening presents a selection of the short films Mendieta made between 1971 and 1974, beginning with what is believed to be her first film. Mendieta appears in the majority of the films from this period, whether in public performances or in privately filmed actions. Using materials such as animal blood, bird feathers, grass, air, water and earth, she stages ritualistic scenes characterised by their deep sense of poignancy and poetic beauty. [The second] screening presents a selection of short films Mendieta made between 1975 and 1981. In 1975, the artist experimented with different imaging and processing technologies including video and Cinefluography (X-ray motion film). These are the last films in which she appears. In Mendieta's Silueta films (1974-81), we see the artist's silhouette inscribed into various outdoor landscapes in Iowa and Mexico using natural elements such as earth, sand, flowers, rock and grass, often in conjunction with flammable materials such as fireworks and gunpowder. The programme concludes with two films shot in Mendieta's native country of Cuba. These works capture the artist's rock etchings and sand sculpture of goddess figures from the Pre-Columbian Taíno culture.--from Tate website.

A wildly entertaining and surprisingly educational dive into art history as you've never seen it before, from the host of the beloved ArtCurious podcast We're all familiar with the works of Claude Monet, thanks in no small part to the ubiquitous reproductions of his water lilies on umbrellas, handbags, scarves, and dorm-room posters. But did you also know that Monet and his cohort were trailblazing rebels whose works were originally deemed unbelievably ugly and vulgar? And while you probably know the tale of Vincent van Gogh's suicide, you may not be aware that there's pretty compelling evidence that the artist didn't die by his own hand but was accidentally killed--or even murdered. Or how about the fact that one of Andy Warhol's most enduring legacies involves Caroline Kennedy's moldy birthday cake and a collection of toenail clippings? ArtCurious is a colorful look at the world of art history, revealing some of the strangest, funniest, and most fascinating stories behind the world's great artists and masterpieces. Through these and other incredible, weird, and wonderful tales, ArtCurious presents an engaging look at why art history is, and continues to be, a riveting and relevant world to explore.

"Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) produced some of the most compelling images of body- and identity-oriented art of the 1970s. The tracks made by the artist dragging her blood-covered arms down a wall; the pigment-filled void of her silhouette pressed into a sandy beach, consumed by advancing waves; her bodily outline drawn by ignited gunpowder on the earth or set alight with fireworks against the night sky; and fetishistic goddess shapes molded in soil, adorned with flowers, resound in the histories of feminist art, performance and land art, and late twentieth-century Latin American art." "Despite major survey exhibitions by museums in the United States, Europe, and Latin America over the last decade, however, a large body of work by Mendieta remains unknown. Hundreds of 35 mm slides in the artist's personal archive, including many that document her extensive Silueta series - her signature "earth-body works" created in the landscapes of Mexico, Iowa, upstate New York, and Cuba between 1973 and 1981 - remain unpublished and are unknown even to the most knowledgeable of contemporary art scholars. In addition to the slide works published in this volume for the first time, there are selections from her many black-and-white photographic negatives and contact sheets, documenting unknown sculptural works produced in the early 1980s, as well as revealing pages from the artist's diaristic sketchbooks."--BOOK JACKET.