INFERNO

Ana Mendieta: Blood Inside Outside – Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore – March 1 — June 28, 2020

Recently acquired by the BMA, Ana Mendieta’s 1975 film, Blood Inside Outside, demonstrates the pioneering feminist artist’s exploration of the multiple layers of meaning ascribed to blood—from death to rebirth. This presentation of the film by the late artist (Cuban, 1948-1985) is accompanied by rare lifetime photographs from the artist’s Body Tracks series as well as her elegant drawings of abstracted outlines of paleolithic goddesses, repeatedly inscribed on a variety of surfaces, from modern paper to an actual leaf to an ancient style of bark cloth.

Ana Mendieta is Born in Havana, Cuba, 1948. Died in New York, USA, 1985. Ana Mendieta, among the most celebrated Cuban artists, was originally trained as a painter: she soon turned to filmmaking and photography, and later drawing and sculpture, in her short yet extremely prolific career, establishing an exceptional personal synthesis of Body and Land Art through the introduction of the human and female body in the landscape. The realization of ritual performances, translated thorugh all her media, steep her own body into nature, thus emphasizing her physical and spiritual link with the Earth. She traveled and performed between Iowa and Mexico, revealing 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 elements and environments.

Among the major solo shows dedicated to the Cuban-American artist: Ana Mendieta: Connecting to the Earth, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2019); Earthbound, Middleheim Museum, Antwerp (2019); Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (2016), 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); Ana Mendieta: Alma, Silueta en Fuego, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (2015); Traces, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London (2013); She Got Love, Castello di Rivoli (2013); 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); Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) – Body Tracks, Neues Museum Luzern, Lucerne and Fries Museum, Leeuwarden (2002); Ana Mendieta Selected Works, Kunst-Werke Berlin KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin (2002); Ana Mendieta, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela; Kusthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf; Fundació Antoni Tápies, Barcelona; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey, Monterrey and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (1996); Ana Mendieta (1948–1985), Helsinki City Art Museum, Helsinki; Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala; The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik and Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde (1996); Ana Mendieta: The Late Works, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland and Artothèque de Caen, Caen (1994).

Images: Ana Mendieta. Blood Inside Outside. 1975 © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co. Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York