Who Is Ana Mendieta?

Abstract

Who is Ana Mendieta? Redfern, C. & Caron, C. (201 1 ). Who is Ana Mendieta? New York, NY: The Feminist Press. 84 pages. $18.95 hardcover.Who is Ana Mendieta? is clearly a labor of love for creators Christine Redfern and Caro Caron. It is a hybrid graphic text that includes essays, a thought-provoking comic, and an annotated bibliography that looks more like a zine. Caron's drawings are masterful and emotive. The narrative, which combines Mendieta's voice with the voices of other artists, critics, collectors, and historians, feels almost like a poem. At times, the text is disconnected, like pieces of ephemera collected from decades past and patched together to tell a story. The juxtaposed images and texts elegantly recount how early feminist artists struggled mightily under the oppressive shadow of patriarchy to make a space in the art world for women.The book begins with an essential introduction by Lucy R. Lippard. The introduction is especially helpful for readers who may not be familiar with the struggle of women artists in the past 50 years or the life and work of Ana Mendieta. Lippard, a wellrespected critic and scholar, not only writes about Mendieta and the struggle of women artists, but also notes the ways that comics have been catalysts and/or byproducts of political insurrections.Lippard, Redfern, and Caron frame Mendieta's story as part of a larger picture that depicts the ways women have suffered both physical and psychological violence at the hands of men, and our culture as a whole. They argue that such suffering continues to persist to ensure that patriarchy remains the status quo. Using the story of Valerie Solanas, they illustrate how women who have used violence against men are depicted by historians and the media as mentally unstable. Male artists who have been privileged by fame, class, and race are seen as eccentric artistic geniuses. This is the backdrop of the stage on which the story begins.Ana Mendieta, born in 1948, was sent away from her Cuban homeland in 1961 as part of Operation Peter Pan, to escape the turbulence and violence of Castro. The privilege she enjoyed in Cuba was erased as she and her sister became lost children in the Catholic social service system of Iowa. She found a home of sorts in the art department at the University of Iowa where she earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees. Mendieta was deeply influenced by the feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the American landscape was full of turbulence and revolution. All of this is illustrated skillfully in the book in a series of drawn montages of various artists, art figures, and Mendieta herself. Redfern and Caron have cleverly contextualized Mendieta's influences and the ways they affected her. They also make visible that which notorious art historians like Horst Waldemar Janson have purposely made invisible - women in the visual arts. The book is filled with mini-tributes to well-known feminist artists such as Carolee Schneemann and Hannah Wilke.The reader can easily see how Mendieta is deeply influenced by the work and rebellion of these women who dared to bare their bodies, create incredibly complex and controversial performance pieces, and raise their fists against the good old boys of the art world.Caron and Redfern use images to effectively tell how Mendieta developed asan artist. Within the story, the reader sees Mendieta, a small figure marked by a masked face, move through time. In one spread she slips into a door left ajar; it looks like a prison door with a meshed window and industrial handle. The reader follows her like Alice down the rabbit hole only to turn the page and witness Mendieta's famous Rape Scene from 1973.Her performance/installation was inspired by the reaction of the press and others to a very violent rape/murder that took place in March 1973. She invited people over to her apartment as though she were hosting an art event or a dinner party. …