Ana Mendieta was born in 1948, Havana, Cuba and died in 1985 in New York.
Cuban exile, Mendieta studies at Iowa State University, where she comes in contact with feminist movements and embraces the ideals of feminism. She realizes a personal synthesis of Body Art and Land Art, by undermining Land-artists majestic actions through the introduction of the human body in the landscape. In those years, she realizes ritual performances, photographs and sculptures, steeping her own body into nature, thus emphasizing her physical and spiritual link with the Earth. The untitled works that comprise the Silueta series, which she preformed as she traveled between Iowa and Mexico, reveal her interest in the earth as a site to address issues of displacement by recording the presence of her body—or the imprint it left behind—within different natural environments. Mendieta often filled in the silhouette of her body on the earth with various materials such as rocks, twigs, and flowers, as well as blood and gunpowder.
Among the major solo shows dedicated to the Cuban-American artist, we can mention: the travelling exhibition Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972-1985, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines and Miami Art Museum, Miami (2004); in 2002 Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) – Body Tracks, Neues Museum Luzern, Lucerne and Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; Ana Mendieta Selected Works, Kunst-Werke Berlin KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin; in 1996 Ana Mendieta (1948–1985), Helsinki City Art Museum, Helsinki; Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala; The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik and Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde; Ana Mendieta, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela; Kusthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf; Fundació Antoni Tápies, Barcellona; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey, Monterrey and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; in 1994 Ana Mendieta: The Late Works, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland and Artothèque de Caen, Caen; She got Love, Castello di Rivoli (2013); Traces, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London (2013); Ana Mendieta: Alma, Silueta en Fuego, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri (2014); Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2015), NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL (2016), Bildmuseet, Umeå (2017), Martin-Gropius Bau, Berlin, and Institute for Contemporary Art, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (2018); Earthbound, Middleheim Museum, Antwerp (2019); and Ana Mendieta: Connecting to the Hearth, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2019).