Finding Ana

Finding Ana investigates the complexities of Ana Mendieta’s personal and professional life, allowing for discourse on the cross-over between biography and practice of an artist and the varying strata and positions of power within the art world. In 1981, Ana Mendieta returned to her native Cuba where she created the Rupestrian Sculptures, a series of carvings in the caves of Jaruco Park. These works confronted her anxieties of separation from her culture of origin and concluded the series of identity-based works for which she is best known. According to the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Ludwig Foundation in Havana (as cited in Jose Quiroga’s Cuban Palimpsests published in 2005), Ana’s sculptures were destroyed.* In 2012, I traveled to Cuba and located these works, weathered but not dismantled. The project documents my journey and discovery of Ana Mendieta's lost works, unraveling an alternative to what is reported, asserting myself in her narrative while considering the position of the artist as investigator in re-strategizing history in search of another truth.

*The Guggenheim Museum’s website was updated in Spring 2020 to more accurately state that “many” of the sculptures were destroyed. It formerly claimed that “all” of the sculptures were destroyed.

In the Spring of 2020, The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC informed me that the Guggenheim and Professor Quiroga incorrectly stated that all of Ana’s sculptures were destroyed. The Estate of Ana Mendieta stated that the sculptures were created in two different sites in Jaruco Park, and that instead of stating that one site was believed to be destroyed, the sources stated that all of the sculptures were destroyed. The Estate also informed me that the following sources correctly show that at least some of the sculptures were still in existence. According to The Estate, one of the Jaruco sites was visited by the filmmakers who created Fuego de Tierra in 1987, led by Jose Bedia. In this documentary, Gerardo Mosquera is interviewed in front of Maroya. The film is distributed by Video Data Bank and Women Make Movies. This same site was visited by Galeria DUPP in 1997, and they made a short video about their trip, En busca de una huella, which has been shown in many museums. In 2002, Olga Viso likewise saw the works. This information is included in her book Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance, 1972 - 1985 from 2004 in footnote 228 on page 250. For further information on Ana Mendieta’s Esculturas Rupestres (Rupestrian Sculptures), please see the book Ana Mendieta: La tierra habla (The Earth Speaks) published by Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, in 2019 or contact Galerie Lelong.

Finding Ana was made with the generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts. Thank you to Chelsea Knight for assistance in making this project and to Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento for legal services and guidance.