Tate Modern
TBC
It’s difficult to talk about Ana Mendieta’s work without first mentioning her death. The Cuban-American artist was just 36 years old when she died in suspicious circumstances in 1985, after allegedly falling from the 34th-floor Manhattan apartment she shared with her husband, the revered modernist sculptor Carl Andre.
As a rising star of the avant garde art scene in 1980s New York, there’s no knowing what brilliant work Ana Mendieta might still be producing if her career hadn’t been cut tragically short, but it’s doubly unfortunate that the work she did produce is often obscured by conversations about her husband’s murder trial.
Great news, then, that the Tate Modern is putting the art front and centre this summer, in the largest UK exhibition of Ana Mendieta’s work to date, featuring many pieces never exhibited in this country before. Delving into the Havana-born, Iowa-raised artist’s groundbreaking practice spanning performance, photography and video art, it will explore Mendieta’s deep affinity with the natural world, while making the case that she deserves to be remembered as one of the most important artists of the 20th century.
