Ana Mendieta, whose works will be exhibited at the Jeu de Paume from October 16, 2018 to January 27, 2019, is a Cuban-American artist considered one of the most innovative figures of the post-war period. This is the first major exhibition of the artist's works in the world's major museums through his various creations. During her career, cut short by a premature death at the age of 36, Ana Mendieta produced a variety of works: sculptures, paintings, photographs, videos, performances...
Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1948, she had to go into exile with her sister in the United States in 1961 as part of the Peter Pan program after Fidel Castro came to power. Estranged from her family and her country of origin, the artist suffered greatly from this uprooting, which became a central theme in her works. Nature, the spiritual, the body, the blood, the feminine were also recurrent themes in her creations. By lowering the ethnic, sexual, moral, religious, and political boundaries, Ana Mendieta became interested in humans and their links with nature.
Her series entitled "Silhouettes" or "Silueta", produced between 1973 and 1980 and consisting of 200 works, shows the link between the body and nature by reflecting a double movement: that of marking the body in nature through its traces in the grass, flowers, sand, branches, fire, mud... and that of the ephemeral nature of this body, illustrated by its erasure. About this series, Ana Mendieta says: "It's a way to recover my roots and be one with nature. Although the culture in which I live is part of me, my roots and my cultural identity are the result of my Cuban heritage. ”
Her works, varied, poetic, sometimes disturbing or controversial, redefine the place of humans in their universe, in their beliefs, their roots, in the nature that welcomes them. There is no doubt that the exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, reviewing the video works of this contemporary artist anchored in themes that are always trend today, will leave no one indifferent.