Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta
"Born to a prominent family in Havana but exiled to the US as a girl, Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) is regarded as one of the most significant artists of the postwar era. During her too-brief career, she produced a distinctive body of work that includes drawings, installations, performances, photographs, and sculpture. Less well known is her remarkable and prolific production of experimental films. This richly illustrated catalogue presents a series of sequential color stills from each of twenty-one original Super 8 films that have been newly preserved and digitized in high definition, combined with related photographs, and reference still images from all of the artist's 100 films; together these illustrations sample the full range of the artist's film practice from 1973 to 1981. The book includes Mendieta's first published comprehensive filmography resulting from three years of collaborative research conducted by the Estate of Ana Mendieta and the University of Minnesota as well as original essays by John Perreault, Michael Rush, Rachel Weiss, Lynn Lukkas, Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, and Laura Wertheim Joseph. The first book-length treatment of Mendieta's moving-image practice, Covered in Time and History aims to locate her films centrally within her larger oeuvre and at the forefront of the multidisciplinary shifts that characterized visual arts practice during the 1970s."--Provided by publisher.
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Great catalogue of her filmwork in conjunction with the U of Minnesota exhibit. I especially appreciated the preservationist notes from her niece in the section “Uncovering Ana: The Rebirth of Mendieta's Filmworks”. I also enjoyed reading about her relationship with A.I.R. Gallery.
Then there's this, my favorite quote in the section “Forever Young: Five Lessons from the Creative Life of Ana Mendieta” by Lynn Lukkas:
“In retrospect, it is difficult to imagine that the Intermedia Program and its anything-goes environment, which included intimate and sexual relationships between students and faculty and frequent drinking, would be permitted in today's educational climate and litigious society.”
I attended this very MFA program from 1999-2003 and it was still very much permitted. It's important because I'm not sure Mendienta's work would exist if the Intermedia Program at Iowa was a standard MFA factory for professional artists. Intermedia was more a “safe space” for radical creative activity. The University eventually disallowed blood, guns, verbal harassment, and teacher/student relationships, stunting the artwork in the process. University administrators bulldozed a Temporary Autonomous Zone and erected a bland and inconsequential digital media program in it's place. This was inevitable, but thankfully Ana Mendieta's work escaped in time.
