Research Paper On Ana Mendieta

The artwork I choose to write about is relevant to gender, sexuality, women, and gender roles. The name of my chosen piece is “Anatomy of a Kimono.” This piece was completed in 1974 by Canadian-American artist, Miriam Schapiro. The art piece was created using a multitude of fabrics that could be found in traditional Japanese kimonos as well as acrylic paint. These various forms of media were combined on a canvas. In order to assemble the fabric based materials of her work, Miriam Schapiro collected scraps of silk and handkerchiefs from the various places that she visited. The different materials Schapiro used were then assembled into ten, large, Japanese style panels that resembled abstract expressionism. The fabrics represented women’s influence

Ana Mendieta (November 18, 1948 – September 8, 1985) was a Cuban American execution craftsman, stone worker, painter and video craftsman who is best known for her "earth-body" fine art. She was conceived in Havana, Mendieta touched base in the United States as an outcast in 1961, through operation Peter Pan. Her work was by and large personal and concentrated on topics including women's liberation, brutality, life, demise, and put, having a place, relocation and issues of character. Amid her lifetime, Mendieta created more than 200 masterpieces utilizing earth as a sculptural medium. She utilized her body and normal materials to indicate physical and profound association with earth. Her works are by and large connected with the four essential components of nature. Mendieta regularly centered around a profound and physical association with the Earth. Mendieta communicates effective all inclusive truths by utilizing subjects of birth, development, demise, and resurrection, which

How has the artist used the body as a subject matter to represent issues of identity ad culture in his/her society?

The performance artist Ana Mendieta was a focal point of both the art scene and the feminist movement of the 1980’s. Even 30 years after her controversial death, there is a cult following of Mendieta. Her work, which sold for around $2,000 during her prime in the ‘80’s, has sold for as much as $200,000 in the present day. Her story, influences, message, and mysterious death have all contributed to her impact and fame.

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban, American Artist born in 1948. She explored themes of Female identity and gender stereotype and identity within a conservative society. A lot of her work is inspired by her Cuban heritage, utilising the natural environment, found and human objects, which she expressed with performance, sculpture, painting and video. In 1961 Mendieta escaped the Castro regime in Cuba with her older sister to the United States of America where they lived in refugee camps, institutions and foster homes until they became reunited with their mother five years later. At the age of 29 Mendieta left the University of Iowa after receiving an MA in painting and MFA in intermedia. Mendieta made over seventy films and tapes that catalogue her art.

A prominent Cuban-born artist, Ana Mendieta, has partnered the female body with nature to explore her own cultural and physical displacement, and through her incorporation of performance, body and land art has attracted numerous interpretations and historical studies. Mendieta was exiled from her homeland in the 1960s, moving to the USA. This displacement from her homeland and culture played a large part in informing her work. Mendieta repeatedly proclaimed, ‘I am between two cultures’ (Mendieta in Barreras del Rio) . In her search for identity Mendieta supported feminist ideas which in turn promoted feminine discourse. I believe that Mendieta 's intention was to empower women through a shared experience and the heritage of an ancient matriarchal culture. The ‘Silueta Series’ which incorporated earth works, natural materials and her own body, comprised of over one hundred photographs and short films from 1973 to 1980 that documented Mendieta’s ephemeral interventions between herself and the land. Art Historian Guy Brett states that Silueta “is her great contribution to art” (Brett, 2004:186) . Mendieta created imprints of her body in nature, leaving a silhouette or a trace. Initially, Mendieta used her own body placed in the landscape (see Fig 8) but as she progressed she would use a template to imprint her image or trace her outline in the earth. A comparison of images from the Silueta Series (shown in Fig 8 – 14) enables us to see her evolving the appearance of the

Living as a woman has been, for many, a painful and exhausting experience. The photo series Rituals by Yung Cheng Lin documents womanhood and one untitled photo in this series, which depicts a woman being pierced through the throat with a long stemmed red rose as a large fly lands on her open mouth, illustrates the female experience from Lin’s perspective. This imagine is beautifully shot and unnerving to the viewer. The purpose of this gorgeous and violent image is to show how cultural ideals of beauty have been thrust upon women as a whole and the way these ideals are harming women.

Lastly, the image near the end of this paper points out gender codes that identified with women. The woman is representing the feminine touch forming a casting posture to display gender. As a result, she is on one foot expressing an unbalance scale of her life. She is ruling to behave like a woman and used a shorthand approach to communicate the ideas. The arms and legs are free from the body which conveys a message for people to look at her. Her head is very slightly tilted which exemplifies appeasement and results she is not powerful. However, she has a smile on her face that illustrates a message that women express their feelings. The position of the hands is

Some of the female artists profiled in this unit are all united in their quest of projecting a unanimous theme of reclamation of the female sexuality and identity. They conveyed the impression that female sexual objectification was no longer for male or societal consumption but for a purpose for women to feel empowered. They also had an immerse understanding of genderism and the power it has; especially under societal pressures. Thus, female artists came to understand the ideology of individualism and therefore pursued the art of liberation and identity that no longer tolerated under the scope of muscularity.

The purpose of my essay is to discuss the various different approaches that female artists have used to challenge women’s identity as the inferior sex and how they have attempted to promote the deconstruction of gender throughout history. I want to explore how the earlier Feminist Artists influenced the work of subsequent female artists and facilitated their success within the art world. I will show how Feminist Artists used their own perspective and personal experiences to create a natural link between the viewer and the artwork, often with the intention of encouraging a change both socially and politically. Their artwork often utilised what would be considered traditionally female skills such as craft techniques, a prime example of which

Representation plays a crucial role in how we understand our own and other’s bodies; for example ideals of what is normal, beautiful or physically accepted in society. Ted Lawson contemporary sculptures Eve, beautiful decay, 2013 (Fig.2) are physical representations of modern psychological concerns. Beautiful decay sculptures confront issue of the female form and the fragile relationship between the body and the mind. Lawson’s Eve touches on the ramifications of gluttony, vanity, abuse, anorexia, self harm etc. As though stemming from her first sinful act by indulging in one of the forbidden fruit, Eve has a choice of different paths she might choose to go down, each leading to a different version of herself.

The body in contemporary art has been a means of transportation for many ideas and concepts relating to the human condition. Many of the concepts deal with

For Descartes, the body was a mere physical envelope that needed to be transcended to achieve the full potential of one's intellectual abilities. As a result, pairs emerged to parallel the dichotomy between body and mind: corrupt versus moral, ungodly versus godly, feelings versus reason, and finally female versus male. In the patriarchal society, the body has always been associated with women, as women are able to give birth and have corporeal manifestations unknown to men, such as menstruations. Women are not only regarded as just bodies, they are also weak bodies, unreliable and unpredictable. Consequently, the body has always been regarded as inferior, and been used to make women inferior. The body has been removed from philosophical, sociological, historical and artistic discussions. And is it not a feminist problem for artists, that the body that the patriarchy debases and refuses to acknowlege in art, is associated with women? Philosophical dualism reduces women to their biology, alienates them and refuses them entry to the 'realm of the intellect'. It therefore seems to a necessity for feminist female artist to find a solution to this problem which affects women's lives so badly. Niki de Saint-Phalle has always claimed that her work was concerned with women's problems because she was herself a woman, and most of her oeuvre is centered around the female body. How she treated dualism in her Nanas series and more specifically in the work Nana Noire Upside-Down is what the next paragraph will be focused

This can also deliberately seen as a displacement in social normativity. Feeling of being outsider, not having its own place and being differentiated from what has already perceived to be normal. Many of these feelings are apprehended through social norms and oppressions. Sarah Ahmed addresses other(ed) identities as ‘strange bodies’ (Ahmed, 2000, p.53), which suggests that those who acknowledge themselves as conventional bodies are claiming they have become home (Ahmed, 2000, p.52). However, marginalising identities would have not been existed if the particularising normativity weren’t pursued in the first place. Because of its misplacement, feminist artist uses their body to express their position in the societal structures, not only it expresses as an object, but also show that they have the right to the authority of themselves in this contradictive home. This suggests that female body should no longer be abjected in the gaze of male artist as inanimate beings (Sliwinska, 2016, p.54). Furthermore, through voicing their body and mind in the artwork, feminist artists continues to advocate this problematic contradiction of classical

When deciding on what issue should be brought to the attention of the campus the artist choose to focus on the acceptance and decriminalization of the human body. Therefore the demonstration was called My Body is Not a Crime. The artist wanted to incorporate both the male and female anatomy by creating a demonstration that properly portrays the concept of uncensored beauty. The inspiration for the topic derived from the feminist artist Dafna Rehavia, whom created artwork depicting the mutilation of the female anatomy. The demonstration’s purpose was to bring awareness to the public of the notion that the human body is not an object that can be given tittles but a natural organism pertaining to all. Human bodies are all created in different forms but remain equal in beauty. Beauty, defined by the demonstration differs from the beauty deemed acceptable in society. Within social media, movies, magazines, and other forms of advertisements the human body is molded and shaped into