MIAMI, United States. – Last Monday, November 14, the University of Iowa inaugurated the Ana Mendieta Gallery in honor of the renowned Cuban artist trained in that house of higher studies, according to the magazine Rialta.
The new exhibition space is located in the Visual Arts Building of the academic institution and is sponsored by the School of Art and Art History, as well as its Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
In accordance with Rialtathe Ana Mendieta Gallery has the purpose of honoring the memory and art of the innovative Cuban artist, as well as remembering her stay and her work in that notorious institution.
The opening of the gallery included the projection of several films ―records of performances― of the artist, which were presented by her niece Raquel Cecilia Mendieta. Among the films shown were “Sudando sangre” (1973), “Respiration of grass” (1974), “Ocean bird” (Washing) (1974), “Fountain” (1975) and “Butterfly” (1975).
Ana Mendieta is among the most celebrated visual artists of the Cuban diaspora. painter, photographer, performer and video creator, she was a pioneer of the conceptualism that emerged in the United States in the 1970s.
At the University of Iowa, the Cuban obtained a master’s degree in painting and another in multimedia art and video. “While she was at this center of higher studies, and under the influence of the Performing Arts and Multimedia departments in particular, she began to carry out the performances and the intermediary works responsible for its current notoriety”, recalls Rialta.
In that center, Mendieta also moved from neofigurative and expressionist pictorial production to intermediate creations, where her body was the main support for her work.
Ana Mendieta was born in Havana on November 18, 1948 and left Cuba at the age of 12 as part of the Operation Peter Panwhich marked his sensitivity and his creation.
The artist died in 1985, at the age of 37, in incidents that have not been clarified to this day.
Since then, his legacy has become increasingly appreciated and studied in the most prestigious artistic circuits around the world.
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