Ana Mendieta
By Helen Mandley
Viewing the Ana Mendieta
‘Traces’ exhibition at The Hayward Gallery has led me
to explore the enigma of this
Artist’s work further. I was initially struck by these
burnt wood sculptures of
maybe 5ft tall, I felt I was witnessing the remains of a
dark secret, ritual markings,
some delicate and feminine in leaf like shapes, some
raw and crude, some placed
apparently random appearing as how nature had
drawn them. Were these artefacts
privy to a set of people who are practicing black
magic?
Maybe these were the remains
of natural phenomena. These feelings glued me to
the spot with wonder and a
sense of fear as to what to expect from further work.
Looking at the notes on the piece,
I read about the Cuban roots of Mendieta and
her interest in Santeria, Santeria provided both a way of reconnecting
with her
homeland and a spiritual system- earth based,
featuring female deities or (orishas)
as well as male and female priests (santero and
santera) in keeping with her
feminist concerns. –Women, Art And Society, Whitney
Chadwick, Fourth Edition
Moving onto her photos of her
body and body outlines in various environments
was equally exciting, there
was one of her body covered in feathers, was this self
harm? Did she feel she needed
to be punished? Was she wishing to be a bird and
fly to somewhere far away?
Maybe she just wanted to be free and in disguise? All
these questions came to me.
To me, I felt as though she wanted to run away and
reconnect with her real
homeland, she felt displaced in the shell she was
naturally in at that point.
Her body outline in sand, from the Silueta Series, Red
Flowers silueta on sand,
Mexico 76, reminded me of corpse ashes being tossed
into the ocean, a trace of
the human has remained just floating out to sea where
the water and elements may
take it; this sombre photo stirred a sense of a lost
soul, someone trying to get
out their shell, to fly in the wind or sail in the sea like
a discarded flower from one
shore to another, yet beautiful and gentle without
harm to anyone, just being,
without identity, settling wherever the wind and sea
takes it, maybe this is how
she felt at that exact moment. Very
well put by
Blocker, cited by Mariana
Ortega in an essay ‘Exiled Space, in between space:
existential spatiality in Ana
Mendieta’s Siluetas Series’, “By engaging
the
contradictions of identificatory practice relative to
the female, the primitive, the
earth, and nation, Mendieta occupies the discursive
position of exile, and she uses
this position to produce in us a sense of the uncanny”
and
“Geographies and their signification thus emerge not
as the site of secure and
coherent identities but rather as those disruptive
interventions in the historical
narratives of culture” Rogoff- The Discourse of Exile
Equally beguiling is ‘Grass
Silueta, Iowa,78’, this has an ephemeral quality, just
capturing an outline of a
body in the long grass, reminding me of days as a child
walking in the countryside,
feeling or believing to have caught a glimpse of
someone or something beside
me in a field, hearing a whisper of the wind or
snap of a twig underfoot and
turning to see the grass stand upright as though
someone had just walked
amongst it. Grass Silueta conjured up the stories I
heard as a child about ‘The
Bogey Man’, I suspect used in The Fens to keep
children from straying too
far, also the stories I have heard about Obeah or Ju Ju
from my Caribbean friends,
about a man with horses hooves walking around
fields and forests in St Lucia, scaring local
people who believe they have seen
him. Much like the rest of
the Caribbean there is always a tale to tell about a local
‘Bogey man’ or ‘Cloved footed
man’ or such other superstitions. Caribbean
culture is steeped in such
tales and no one is considered silly to believe them, it’s
within the local folklore of
each island, I think Mendieta was linking ‘Grass Silueta’
to Cuban folklore here as the
Grass Silueta photo showed her own silhouette
being removed from somewhere
and a trace remained, giving the viewer a ghost
like sense, I think a glimpse
into her psyche.
Looking at her sand drawings
was less interesting, to me they were rather like
doodles on a notepad,
although I haven’t explored the significance these have
artistically to her work,
they were quite child-like and playful. Maybe these are
Santeria or Cuban symbols,
but unlike her other work they did not capture my
imagination as much, as it
did not feel as though Mendieta had taken as much
time and care to produce.
Her film ‘Traces’ had a
metamorphosis message to it. Her silhouette was again
transformed, she became a
butterfly then finally a devil like creature through a
process of growth, light and
fire, like a re-birthing. Fascinating to watch, the
message was once again about
life and death, how quick it can come, about
beauty, demons, identity,
freedom, loss and regaining something. The sense that
we all struggle with these
issues spoke to me directly whilst watching.
Even her photos with male
facial hair appear playful, yet they also have this
seriousness about them,
female artists during the 70s and 80s were struggling to
find their place, I think
this is a statement about what it was to be a man,
sexuality, women and men in
society at that time! Also about male power over
women and the presence of a
man. Whilst I consider this a tongue in
cheek
female transvestite
expression, I think at the time these photos would’ve been
quite shocking to the world,
I like to imagine this issue would’ve been explored
further had she had lived.
Looking at the images of her
bruised, splattered and smeared in blood, I found
these disturbing to view, as
though I was really encroaching on her personal
space, who had done this? Was
this planned? I questioned the intention of this
work, why show such morbid
images? However, afterwards I understood her
reasons for producing these
photos. In the 70s and 80s feminism was still
emerging out of infancy and
this was a very powerful statement about domestic
violence, women were still
fighting for their rights in western society as well as
the Art world. It is
interesting to me, as I consider myself a feminist as well as
someone that wishes to
explore taboos; I wondered why I was reticent to view
these photos of a battered
woman? What ignorant bubble was I actually
living
in? Was it past my viewing
threshold to witness this type of pain? Are these not
the borders that I also wish
to cross as a Fine Artist? For instance
my photos of
homelessness were challenging
for some people to look at yet this work
challenged me internally,
whilst the viewer may find these images
unpalatable, I
know that this is what I
would like to do. Maybe I am a little afraid, maybe the
arousal of dormant memories
of events I would rather forget frightens me, but
the truth is there for us all
to see and do something about, or ignore and remain
in our own little bubble
pretending that everything is ok. I think these photos
have become some of my
favourite pieces now, because this epitomizes the artist
and society laid bare.
Mendieta has helped me
address my own demons, angels, consciousness, my
past and more importantly the
present. For me art is not about the pretty
landscape or the beautiful
girl, it’s about the purging, the exposure of taboos and
she has inspired me to
explore this further.
Some of her work has reminded
me of my own interest in what has been left
behind, my video of rain
water running down the road captured something many
ignore, the light reflected
on oil spills and the photographic work on
homelessness and the
footprints left behind, as I tried to entice viewers to look
and ponder what had occurred
in those spaces. Throughout the exhibition I felt
her with me, she succeeded so
brilliantly as an artist, I really connected with her,
her work showing a residue of what has been has
aroused a need within me to
unearth more taboos about the hidden in my own work.
“My exploration through my art of the relationship
between myself and nature has
been a clear result of my having been torn from my
homeland during my
adolescence. The making of my Silueta in nature keeps
(makes) the transition
between my homeland and my new home. It is a way of
reclaiming my roots and
becoming one with nature. Although the culture in
which I live is part of me, my
roots and cultural identity are a result of my Cuban
heritage” Ana Mendieta
“Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean,
sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean” Bob Dylan
References
Books:
Women, Art And Society, Whitney Chadwick, 4th
Edition
Generations and Geographies in the Visual
Arts: Feminist Readings edited by Griselda Polloc
Online:
http://www.academia.edu/223819/Exiled_Space_In-Between_Space_Existential_Spatiality_in_Ana_Mendietas_Siluetas_Series,
Essay by Mariana Ortega
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