Ana Mendieta

A dead tree. A body. Ocean waves.

Ana Mendieta, 1974

United States 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min

A single-channel video (transferred from Super-8 film), color, silent, where we watch the artist from behind as she traces a rough outline of her body in blood against a white wall.

Single channel, super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent.

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.

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.

This film is a performance that the artist undertook at Old Man’s Creek, Sharon Center, Iowa City, Iowa. The performance was recorded on Super-8 film and 35mm slides. The film shows Mendieta standing naked on the sandy bank on one side of the creek, in front of flowing water and a steep mud bank on the other side. After looking directly at the camera, she raises a flask to shoulder level and begins pouring blood down her chest, legs and stomach. She then reaches over her shoulders to include her back, and covers her arms before casting the empty vessel aside. Dropping to the ground, she plunges face-first into a heap of white feathers where she slowly rolls back and forth, adhering the feathers to the sticky blood on her skin. Finally, she rises slowly to stand with her arms held away from her body but bent at the elbow as though she is imagining being a bird with wings. She holds this position for a few seconds before the film ends.

Artist, Ana Mendieta, narrates as corresponding images of her work in both still and moving images highlight her themes and meanings behind her work.

This film shows the artist, covered in white bird feathers, running along the shoreline of La Ventosa beach in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Short film by Ana Mendieta.

Mendieta, Ana: Burial Pyramide, Yagul, Mexico.

Blood Inside Outside, demonstrates the pioneering feminist artist’s exploration of the multiple layers of meaning ascribed to blood—from death to rebirth.

United States / Mexico 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 4 min

United States 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 1 min

United States 1972, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 7 min

United States 1975, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 6 min

A dead tree. A body. Ocean waves.

A film by Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta, 1974

United States 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min

United States c.1974, Super 8 film transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min

A single-channel video (transferred from Super-8 film), color, silent, where we watch the artist from behind as she traces a rough outline of her body in blood against a white wall.

No synopsis available yet.

Ana Mendieta, 1975

Single channel, super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent.

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.

Volcán captures a raised mound of earth set against a grassy riverbank. A white silhouette in the shape of a female body lies atop of the form. The same shot then cuts to a frame where the base of the white figure spontaneously starts smoking. It then quickly sets aflame. As it combusts, a deep cavity is revealed, even as it is cloaked in growing flames and smoke, evoking a volcanic eruption. Finally, the entire body is engulfed so that only ashes remain in the negative space, human remains. Mendieta short the work in 1975 at Old Man’s Creek in Sharon Center, Iowa, near where the artist was living at the time.

United States / Mexico 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min

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.

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.

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)

This film is a performance that the artist undertook at Old Man’s Creek, Sharon Center, Iowa City, Iowa. The performance was recorded on Super-8 film and 35mm slides. The film shows Mendieta standing naked on the sandy bank on one side of the creek, in front of flowing water and a steep mud bank on the other side. After looking directly at the camera, she raises a flask to shoulder level and begins pouring blood down her chest, legs and stomach. She then reaches over her shoulders to include her back, and covers her arms before casting the empty vessel aside. Dropping to the ground, she plunges face-first into a heap of white feathers where she slowly rolls back and forth, adhering the feathers to the sticky blood on her skin. Finally, she rises slowly to stand with her arms held away from her body but bent at the elbow as though she is imagining being a bird with wings. She holds this position for a few seconds before the film ends.

Captures students at Henry Sabin Elementary School in Iowa City holding a circular parachute and pulling down to catch the air's resistance.

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.

This film shows the artist, covered in white bird feathers, running along the shoreline of La Ventosa beach in Oaxaca, Mexico.

A ritual brings the stone heart to life.

Ana Mendieta, 1975

Short film by Ana Mendieta.

Mendieta, Ana: Burial Pyramide, Yagul, Mexico.