A physical

researcher approaches

..Re-pulse

an embodied reading of Ana Mendieta`

Charlotte Wendy Lawcsm art&science

2014

I began the day with a clear intention: to further discover a new

power in my precursors, the women of this era appeared embalmed in

elegance and extremity. Amongst them Valentine de Saint-Points

Futurist Manifesto of Lust jumped out, an elegant storm raged and

delighted, as she heralded lust “an essential element of the dynamism

of life...a force...a virtue...an epicentre at which energies are

resourced...an expression of a being projected beyond itself.”(1918)

sublimely unjust once more, like all the forces of nature! Delivered

from all control, with your instincts revived, you will take place

among the elements.”(1918) Enlivened, I return to the space and

movement.

from the same impulses, and knocked on the doors of my own

practice. This was my introduction to Ana Mendieta.

It would be remarkable, but not impossible for Mendieta to have read

this Manifesto, considering the currency of feminist thought, the

time. Yet, Mendieta’s oeuvre echoes, enacts, embodies, and ultimately

jouissance that

troubled her audience, who were in turn kept at a distance to achieve

her goals.

This paper came to me within a 12-hour Ritually Reading and

Researching study/performance day facilitated by Performance

Space.1 Durational and strictly time managed, as a group we moved

on the hour every hour from Performance Space to the LADA library

Performance Space.2013

Live Art Developement Agency. 2013

A. Dunoyer de Segonzac (Valentine de Saint-Point)Montjoie! organe de l’impérialisme artistique français. 2. année, nos. 1-2, jan.-fév. 1914.

1

1 http://www.perfor-mancespace.org/ritually-reading-and-researching.php

discourse rests on her body, Donald Kuspits (1996) contribution is

laughably antiquated, as his sexually orientated power games seem

desperate to put Mendieta back in her box through psychoanalysis.

Post-Freudians and Post-Structuralists are thankfully on her side.

In writing on Artaud and the artistic process as a way of being outside

of, or against dominant social norms, Deleuze quipped, “You will be

organised, you will be an organism, you will articulate your body

interpreter and interpreted - otherwise you are just deviant.” (1980:

159) Mendieta, despite the calm she achieved in much of her later

work, and her enduring positivity, has landed on the sharp end of this

abjection.

As an artist that used performance, discovered through performance,

research. My intensely personal experience of her work came before

exploring the critical debate that circles it, and I found her powerful in

image, act, and word. However, my subsequent readings seemed to

telling that the most positive statement comes from a friend,

Nancy Spero, who performed a number of re-enactments in

homage, and spoke with warmth and recognition of Mendieta’s work

stating, “If one of her sculptures were sent to a distant planet (...) it

would still convey the imagery, strength, mystery, and sexuality of

the female.”(1995: 168) In later readings, in the place of Mendieta’s

timelessness, birthed through pleasure and pain, a sensation of Ana Mendieta, Sandwoman, 1983http://despinarangou.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/ana-mendieta-body.html. 06.04.14

2

abjection emerged, feeding from an idea of absence that needs to

be teased and re-pulsed. In an attempt to do so, I offer a reading

based on embodied research that reconciles theory to practice, whilst

examining the source of abjection.

An/other body

In tracing the work of Mendieta blood, milk, feathers, and follicle

secretions give over to total landscape. Borders, fertile places for

transgression, are her sites of exploration. Mendieta’s eventual move

outside of her own self as site, into geography brought the ability to

step away from the work and to document and explore new materials

of transition. However by starting with her own form, playing with its

subject/object status, and maintaining the female as her sculptural and

conceptual locus, the body of Ana Mendieta is inescapable.

The critical spectrum runs from David Hopkins statement that

Mendieta “foregrounds her female identity”(2003: 3) to Miwan

Kwon’s ideas on female empowerment through “self-othering” and

the view that Mendieta “almost always approaches erasure or

negation: her “body” consistently disappeared.”(1996: 168) I offer

these opposing views a as capsule of the critical debate, take it and

hold on as you experience a sensation of falling into a hall of mirrors,

is not the same as the body of an artist, and not a body of an artist who

the discourse, in retrospection comes abjection. Men that die young

are lionised, women on the other hand are rationalised: the outsider

deserver. Mendieta’s death was unexpected so can, from this point, 3

Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Glass on Body Imprints––Face) (detail), 1972, black-and-white photograph, 10 x 8”

be dismissed from my dialogue. Its fact is known, albeit unresolved.

question remains, is she, or isn’t she? Present, absent, abject?

Before biography we have the body, “the body is the body, alone it

instrument of man” (Polhemus, 1975:5) I return to see how she used

it. Lets read some body language, lets walk.2

There is a stripped down simplicity to the body; a just-ness, an all-

I’ve-got-ness, an immediacy and fragility, an unshakeable presence

on uncertain ground. It’s real, and Mendieta is present as we enter the

room: pressed up against the glass, inviting all manner of distortions.

Here, before the body we have a face: the place of recognition and the

Transplant, the face of Mendieta becomes a canvas for multiple

mythic, where (especially within Transplant) the status of trans is

in-between the intention is more interesting than the simplicity of

does not equate to from A to B. Slipping between the binary, there is

newness, and an ancient form of androgynous power to embrace.

This sensory play continues as Mendieta pushes her body against a

sheet of glass, a frame of reference, and against the gaze. Mendieta

cuts, without cutting, and distorts face, breasts, back, and abdomen

with a quietude that shows she was well aware of the gendered and

narcissistic misgivings inherent in a woman presenting herself.

Now take the human and change the accepted hierarchy, level the

grounded by the very humanness of her scale. Long arms and legs

body of a new species.

So far, 1972 reveals many playful explorations across Deleuzian

molecular” (1980), whilst also being the beginning of the deep

dialogue Mendieta will have throughout her practice with nature, as

Hans Breder notes “from that point, she blended her body with the

elements in innumerable ways.”(2013) However, of these early works

Standing alone Mendieta fetishizes her own body. This is no small act

ritual patina, fetish objects created in this way serve a purpose, and

acknowledges lines of connection between the individual, the

community (for which Mendieta felt she had lost), and the universal.

Kristeva’s seminal text on abjection has been often quoted in regards

to Mendieta, yet in her exploration of rites, which explores notions of Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Facial Hair Trans-plants) 1972. Lifetime color photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

4 5

Ana Mendieta. Feathered. 1972.Lifetime color photograph.Duncan, Michael. “Tracing Mendieta.” Art in America. April 1999: 110 -113, 154.

Ana Mendieta, Untitled (death of a chicken) Performance, 1972. http://arthistory.sdsu.edu/596/596_3/596_3.html 06.04.14

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Glass on Body Imprints 1972. http://be-hindthecurtainfeminism.wordpress.com/tag/ana-mendieta/ 06.04.14

2

major artist’s work was made in the UK at the same time I discovered Mendieta at The Hayward Gallery, London. From 24.09. - 15.12.13, entitled Traces. I made two trips as part of my research; practicing embodied looking, writing stream of consciousness, subtle gestures, walking.

be dismissed from my dialogue. Its fact is known, albeit unresolved.

question remains, is she, or isn’t she? Present, absent, abject?

Before biography we have the body, “the body is the body, alone it

instrument of man” (Polhemus, 1975:5) I return to see how she used

it. Lets read some body language, lets walk.2

There is a stripped down simplicity to the body; a just-ness, an all-

I’ve-got-ness, an immediacy and fragility, an unshakeable presence

on uncertain ground. It’s real, and Mendieta is present as we enter the

room: pressed up against the glass, inviting all manner of distortions.

Here, before the body we have a face: the place of recognition and the

Transplant, the face of Mendieta becomes a canvas for multiple

mythic, where (especially within Transplant) the status of trans is

in-between the intention is more interesting than the simplicity of

does not equate to from A to B. Slipping between the binary, there is

newness, and an ancient form of androgynous power to embrace.

This sensory play continues as Mendieta pushes her body against a

sheet of glass, a frame of reference, and against the gaze. Mendieta

cuts, without cutting, and distorts face, breasts, back, and abdomen

with a quietude that shows she was well aware of the gendered and

narcissistic misgivings inherent in a woman presenting herself.

Now take the human and change the accepted hierarchy, level the

grounded by the very humanness of her scale. Long arms and legs

body of a new species.

So far, 1972 reveals many playful explorations across Deleuzian

molecular” (1980), whilst also being the beginning of the deep

dialogue Mendieta will have throughout her practice with nature, as

Hans Breder notes “from that point, she blended her body with the

elements in innumerable ways.”(2013) However, of these early works

Standing alone Mendieta fetishizes her own body. This is no small act

ritual patina, fetish objects created in this way serve a purpose, and

acknowledges lines of connection between the individual, the

community (for which Mendieta felt she had lost), and the universal.

Kristeva’s seminal text on abjection has been often quoted in regards

to Mendieta, yet in her exploration of rites, which explores notions of Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Facial Hair Trans-plants) 1972. Lifetime color photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

4 5

Ana Mendieta. Feathered. 1972.Lifetime color photograph.Duncan, Michael. “Tracing Mendieta.” Art in America. April 1999: 110 -113, 154.

Ana Mendieta, Untitled (death of a chicken) Performance, 1972. http://arthistory.sdsu.edu/596/596_3/596_3.html 06.04.14

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Glass on Body Imprints 1972. http://be-hindthecurtainfeminism.wordpress.com/tag/ana-mendieta/ 06.04.14

2

major artist’s work was made in the UK at the same time I discovered Mendieta at The Hayward Gallery, London. From 24.09. - 15.12.13, entitled Traces. I made two trips as part of my research; practicing embodied looking, writing stream of consciousness, subtle gestures, walking.

In his provocative essay on breaking the dominance of the human; to

re-build by exploring the synergy between form, Deleuze is clearly

unformed, intense matter, the matrix of intensity. Intensity = zero;

the time saw in these material disruptions, the unsettling Fetish series,

and explicit references to burial rites from ancient Egypt to Navaho

Indians which verged on re-enactments as an “aesthetic lust for

death”,(Rogoff, 2013) However, if we take the starting point of zero,

we can see Mendieta is indeed “inventing self-destructions that have

nothing to do with the death drive.” (1980: 160)

because of its powerful links to ritual and a sense of homeland. Yet

in 1973 Mendieta’s focus shifted from playing with the ontological to

Rape-Murder Mendieta created a tableau vivant and performed a

socially accepted masculine aggression, sexual violence, and

collective responsibility. Alongside this work which was directed to

an exclusively male audience, Mendieta made a number of public

onto the street from behind a closed door, Mendieta captures the side-

glances and sustained unresponsiveness of the passer-by. By

extending interrogation into everyday scenarios and the community at

the tribal and magical, yet on the fetish object she casts a light, “the

fetish becomes a life preserver, temporary and slippery, but

nonetheless indispensible.”(1980: 37) This is an act of

self-empowerment and ownership, and makes me question the reading

immersion, which made her go beyond herself and highlight the

24) Rock bottom denotes desperation, where as here there is clear

intention, written in blood, a powering up and commitment to the task

at hand.

As James Fraser explored in The Golden Bough (1922), there is a

magic of contact; Tausig expanding on this shows us that “by making

an object and spiritualising it, gives one power over what is

portrayed.” (1992: 90). The centrality of magic to Mendieta is

without question, as she herself stated,

“The turning point in art was in 1972, when I realized that my paintings were not real enough for what I wanted the image to

convey and by real I mean I wanted my images to have

power, to be Magic” (Mendieta, undated)

Mendieta self-appointed task became one of continuous

transformations, pushing the potentials of material and form, which

concept, the silhouette, Mendieta completed hundreds of these artistic

experiments; folding individual form into material, material into

material, Silueta into Silueta, instigating eruptions and dissolutions. Building Piece, 1973http://walkoftheweek.blogspot.

building-piece-1973.html 06.04.146 7

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Fetish Series, Iowa, 1977. Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, (detail) Silueta Series, circa 1978. http://www.alisonjac-quesgallery.com/exhibitions/12/works/ 06.04.14

Ana Mendieta, Untitled (death of a chicken) Performance, 1972.http://helen-barr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/sickana-mendieta.html 06.04.14

In his provocative essay on breaking the dominance of the human; to

re-build by exploring the synergy between form, Deleuze is clearly

unformed, intense matter, the matrix of intensity. Intensity = zero;

the time saw in these material disruptions, the unsettling Fetish series,

and explicit references to burial rites from ancient Egypt to Navaho

Indians which verged on re-enactments as an “aesthetic lust for

death”,(Rogoff, 2013) However, if we take the starting point of zero,

we can see Mendieta is indeed “inventing self-destructions that have

nothing to do with the death drive.” (1980: 160)

because of its powerful links to ritual and a sense of homeland. Yet

in 1973 Mendieta’s focus shifted from playing with the ontological to

Rape-Murder Mendieta created a tableau vivant and performed a

socially accepted masculine aggression, sexual violence, and

collective responsibility. Alongside this work which was directed to

an exclusively male audience, Mendieta made a number of public

onto the street from behind a closed door, Mendieta captures the side-

glances and sustained unresponsiveness of the passer-by. By

extending interrogation into everyday scenarios and the community at

the tribal and magical, yet on the fetish object she casts a light, “the

fetish becomes a life preserver, temporary and slippery, but

nonetheless indispensible.”(1980: 37) This is an act of

self-empowerment and ownership, and makes me question the reading

immersion, which made her go beyond herself and highlight the

24) Rock bottom denotes desperation, where as here there is clear

intention, written in blood, a powering up and commitment to the task

at hand.

As James Fraser explored in The Golden Bough (1922), there is a

magic of contact; Tausig expanding on this shows us that “by making

an object and spiritualising it, gives one power over what is

portrayed.” (1992: 90). The centrality of magic to Mendieta is

without question, as she herself stated,

“The turning point in art was in 1972, when I realized that my paintings were not real enough for what I wanted the image to

convey and by real I mean I wanted my images to have

power, to be Magic” (Mendieta, undated)

Mendieta self-appointed task became one of continuous

transformations, pushing the potentials of material and form, which

concept, the silhouette, Mendieta completed hundreds of these artistic

experiments; folding individual form into material, material into

material, Silueta into Silueta, instigating eruptions and dissolutions. Building Piece, 1973http://walkoftheweek.blogspot.

building-piece-1973.html 06.04.146 7

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Fetish Series, Iowa, 1977. Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, (detail) Silueta Series, circa 1978. http://www.alisonjac-quesgallery.com/exhibitions/12/works/ 06.04.14

Ana Mendieta, Untitled (death of a chicken) Performance, 1972.http://helen-barr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/sickana-mendieta.html 06.04.14

murder of Kitty Genovese in her home on March 13, 1964.3

found, face down, bloody and exposed. I’m intrigued to see this turn

in her body language. From the face-on confrontation with subject/

object, there is a new consistency to Mendieta back. Portraiture is

mostly absent and barriers are intersected between artist, act, and

Body Tracks and Blood Sign, Mendieta works against a wall,

turning her back on the audience. Even within these enclosed

is a channel of communication of language and there is also a channel

which pertains to kinesis, “body motion communication.””(1975: 25)

Mendieta is ahead of us, face-less, becoming-anyone. The movement

is one of de-individualisation, which loops back to notions of the

succumbing to the forces of gravity and being pulled to the earth, or

writing the statements “SHE GOT LOVE” / “THERE IS A DEVIL

manism and witness an agent, “being tempted by space....showing the

consciousness and the external world.” (1938)

was to explore for the next 7 years.

Ana Mendieta, Body Tracks (Rastros Corporales) 1982. Photograph taken during a performance at Franklin Furnace, New York City.

8

Ana Mendieta, Body Tracks (Rastros Cor-porales) 1982. Photograph, Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

3 Social Psychologists Latane and

what came to be known as the Bystander Effect, now a staple in psychology textbooks. Their

number of witnesses to an event, difused the level of responsbilty felt by individuals to act.http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/latane_bystand.html

This body, built up from a silhouette of her own, took many forms;

some with arms aloft recall trance states and voodoo dance, a slight

disentangle and break down as they travel across water, those hewn

from the earth they seem scraped into being by savage hands, whilst

others emerge from natures creases and upturned roots, where

found moments of rupture are embedded with a female form; they

blossom, bleed, dissolve, burn, have hips that sway. Transition is their

common bond. Mendieta’s actual presence comes and goes within

these elemental works, which were carefully documented and often

portrayed by a single image. As her audience I see Mendieta in my

minds eye in the creative act, the process, the before, and the after.

Although within these the body of Mendieta is a (mostly unseen)

maker, and off camera, her presence lingers.4

It’s interesting to treat each of these forms as vital emotional beings,

collectively they are powerful, dream-like, socially unacceptable.

the social appreciation of the body, especially Mary Douglas’s insight

“The social body constrains the way the physical body is perceived.”

(1975: 28) we gain further understanding of the abjection. The

Silueta’s speak in tongues of excess. Many critics are careful to point

out that human was her scale; life-sized, highlighting Mendieta’s

concern was in making “unintrusive” and “minor gestures”(Rogoff,

2013) especially when viewed alongside the Land-Art works of her

contemporaries. These statements do not diminish the works power.

9

Ana Mendieta, Silueta de Cohetes (Anima) 1976 Lifetime color photograph. (detail)http://www.castellodirivoli.org/en/ana-mendieta-she-got-love/ 06.04.14

4A. Franke in the publication, Animism: Modernity Through the Looking Glass, gives a brief but telling synopsis of a Silueta, charting it’s changing states of being, which allow it to essentially become a multiplicity, fully documented, to then be represented by a single image.

subject to the body, to phantasm, to the passage of time, to the

‘mysteries ‘ of life and death...Search for antidotes to mass-media

and teleosomatic standardization, conformism, manipulation.”(2008)

A resonant echo of Mendieta work, and statement “The Struggle

writing her Manifesto post-Mendieta, and despite the fact she did not

become party to our new media age, Mendieta has the potential to

join Haraway’s cyborg ranks as “oppositional, utopian, and

in this is that Mendieta was following similar lines of enquiry as

progressive thinkers of her time, and ours. She has in ways been

limited by an easy grouping arrived at by a simplistic over-feminine

view of the goddess, but her concerns were human, global, future

orientated, and trans.

Elisabeth Von Samsonow, spring-boarding from Anti-Oedipus with

“being-in-the-world” a free-form creator with an intuitive relationship

with material. As Deleuze speaks of “becoming-animal” and

“becoming-molecular”, Samsonow continued his train of thought,

“to be human (...) means to establish and to maintain a relationship

with everything that is not human...linked to a logic of the earth which

we urgently need to elaborate.”(2012: 199) For Samsonow, as for

Deleuze, the girl is a shape-shifter, “she may be animal, she maybe

water, perhaps she is air, perhaps a plant, perhaps a stone.”(2012: 202)

Mendieta ticks all these boxes. “I become an extension of Nature and

Loved, these transitional-objects, and the passionate making of,

existed outside of accepted social bodily norms.

As an active political voice, Mendieta was acutely aware of the

constrains of the society she had found herself in, was vividly

experienced as an outsider. In going outside to nature to gain the

space needed to work, Mendieta was rejecting and breaking with the

socio-bodily conventions, and the unspoken rule, “In every society,

everyone knows and has to know and learn what he has to do in all

conditions.” (Mauss, 1975: 27)

Mendieta exposes the dual status of the body as object and subject

in society, without committing the same violence on her own body

as many of her contemporaries. The human body presses against the

ing behaviours. The explicit and visceral three-dimensional language

Mendieta crafted spoke of desire, for an older form of connectivity,

which liberated the boundaries of the body, and agitated social order.

Gloria Moure summarized this in her statement, “The individual’s

alienation with regards to his or her capacity for direct experience...is

still the ultimate paradigm of western culture.” (1996: 20)

This paradigm has been taken up by a host of writer and thinkers,

from that modernist/post-modernist point onwards as the concerns

connected to anthropology (Taussig and Latour), and those with a

more overreaching philosophical scope, such as Virillo and Guattari.

logic which calls for a future where we “reinvent the relation of the

10 11

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Silueta Series, 1967-78. Lifetime color photograph. http://catlinwilliams.tumblr.com/post/13827144084/ana-mendieta-silueta-series-from-the-late 06.04.14

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Tree of Life Series, 1977. Lifetime color photograph. http://nmpena.wordpress.com/tag/mend-ieta/ 06.04.14

subject to the body, to phantasm, to the passage of time, to the

‘mysteries ‘ of life and death...Search for antidotes to mass-media

and teleosomatic standardization, conformism, manipulation.”(2008)

A resonant echo of Mendieta work, and statement “The Struggle

writing her Manifesto post-Mendieta, and despite the fact she did not

become party to our new media age, Mendieta has the potential to

join Haraway’s cyborg ranks as “oppositional, utopian, and

in this is that Mendieta was following similar lines of enquiry as

progressive thinkers of her time, and ours. She has in ways been

limited by an easy grouping arrived at by a simplistic over-feminine

view of the goddess, but her concerns were human, global, future

orientated, and trans.

Elisabeth Von Samsonow, spring-boarding from Anti-Oedipus with

“being-in-the-world” a free-form creator with an intuitive relationship

with material. As Deleuze speaks of “becoming-animal” and

“becoming-molecular”, Samsonow continued his train of thought,

“to be human (...) means to establish and to maintain a relationship

with everything that is not human...linked to a logic of the earth which

we urgently need to elaborate.”(2012: 199) For Samsonow, as for

Deleuze, the girl is a shape-shifter, “she may be animal, she maybe

water, perhaps she is air, perhaps a plant, perhaps a stone.”(2012: 202)

Mendieta ticks all these boxes. “I become an extension of Nature and

Loved, these transitional-objects, and the passionate making of,

existed outside of accepted social bodily norms.

As an active political voice, Mendieta was acutely aware of the

constrains of the society she had found herself in, was vividly

experienced as an outsider. In going outside to nature to gain the

space needed to work, Mendieta was rejecting and breaking with the

socio-bodily conventions, and the unspoken rule, “In every society,

everyone knows and has to know and learn what he has to do in all

conditions.” (Mauss, 1975: 27)

Mendieta exposes the dual status of the body as object and subject

in society, without committing the same violence on her own body

as many of her contemporaries. The human body presses against the

ing behaviours. The explicit and visceral three-dimensional language

Mendieta crafted spoke of desire, for an older form of connectivity,

which liberated the boundaries of the body, and agitated social order.

Gloria Moure summarized this in her statement, “The individual’s

alienation with regards to his or her capacity for direct experience...is

still the ultimate paradigm of western culture.” (1996: 20)

This paradigm has been taken up by a host of writer and thinkers,

from that modernist/post-modernist point onwards as the concerns

connected to anthropology (Taussig and Latour), and those with a

more overreaching philosophical scope, such as Virillo and Guattari.

logic which calls for a future where we “reinvent the relation of the

10 11

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Silueta Series, 1967-78. Lifetime color photograph. http://catlinwilliams.tumblr.com/post/13827144084/ana-mendieta-silueta-series-from-the-late 06.04.14

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Tree of Life Series, 1977. Lifetime color photograph. http://nmpena.wordpress.com/tag/mend-ieta/ 06.04.14

nature becomes an extension of my body.”(1996: 51)

Through physical immersion with her materials and tasks Mendieta

re-rooted, often referring to her practice as “ritual-work.” Her acts

Sand Painting which acted as a form of natural medication, its cures

found in the act of placing the body within the design, and within the

landscape, thus linking the macro and the micro, or the practice of

carrying earth from your homeland, to eat each day. This

thourghtful research of place and practices of cultures past shows

Mendieta commitment to the continual accumulation of tactile

knowledge, and a holistic, animist, sensuous appreciation of the

world. Reading this in the spirit of Hegel, it becomes the ultimate

very life of the object.” (Preface to The Phenomenology of Mind,

2003)

In instigating action, looking for spaces with less and less control in

order to arrive at a sensation of connectivity, Mendieta is consistently

collaborator with nature.”(1982) I will show that just as her body was

a material, so was the land she inhabited.

Out of Place

experience a radical change in status, racism, and an enforced

to greet them on arrival, the Mendieta sisters were just two of the

12

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Silueta Series, Mexico, 1973. Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

5

This dramatic split resulted in a short stay in a refugee camp followed

by a life of perpetual motion; moving from orphanage to boarding

school, boarding school to foster-home, foster-home to orphanage.

Spending 6 months here and 6 months there, Mendieta as an

adolescent was re-birthed as a multiple minority and weaned on

self-reliance. In Mendieta’s progression to adulthood there is nothing

stable. The only constant is the temporary inhabitation of place.

Thus, Mendieta was an outsider or “deject”(Kristeva, 1982) from the

start.

the criminal in the world of Mendieta. Raquelin Mendieta,

In an interview Mendieta states, “I know if I had not discovered art,

I would have been a criminal. “(Art and Artists: 1983) and follows

this pseudo-confession by quoting Adorno’s sentiment, “all works of

art are uncommitted crimes.” This idea returns us to Kristeva’s idea

of the “deject”, he who strays in order to save him (or her) self. The

essential difference is her active political agenda. If Mendieta had

an artist is not a gift but a commitment”(1982) Mendieta cements her

Ana Mendieta. Untitled, Silueta Series, Iowa, 1976-1980. Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

13

5Operation Peter Pan (Operación Peter Pan / Operación Pedro Pan) was the codename

through Cuban media such as the radio that the government, led by Fidel Castro planned to take children to military schools and to Soviet labor camps, resulting in an exodus

stories can be found from the church groups involved http://www.pedropan.org/category/history, and alternative sources, http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/16/the-cia-cuba-and-operation-peter-pan/

site’s she found, many of which were returned to again and again,

allowed her to invoke the ‘ghost’ within the ‘host’. Transitory being

and transitory making without the desire for longevity, or the presence

of an audience, secludes the work, allowing a sense of commune with

nature, privacy and immediacy.

Much has been written on Mendieta’s yearning, and her quest for

origins. Orphan-hood and exile are frequent touchstones in her

vocabulary. Jean Fisher in her discussion on mystical language

captures another dimension which can illuminate the critical response

to this outsider stance, stating “groundedness is an act of dissent”,

adding “In seeking a place from which to speak, to signify and

recreate the self; “place” becomes the act of signifying itself.”(1995:

Rome, is a palpable psycho-geography: works responding emotionally

to place.

In her appreciation of Mendieta Silueta series Irit Rogoff speaks of

new locations and new materials.” Taking inspiration from Derrida’s

notions of the law of the land, and the Roman act of drawing a circle

Rogoff sees “tangible traces of ownership and cultivation.”(2013)

However, whilst I see Mendieta claimed ownership of her body, the

essential temporary nature of her works in nature, whose existence

rested entirely with nature and the nature of the materials, brings me

Santeria, shedding light on the idea of “monte adentro” translating as

desire to contribute,

“It is only with a real and long enough awakening that a person

becomes present to himself, and it is only with this presence that

a person begins to live like a human being. To know oneself is to

know the world, and it is also paradoxically a form of exile from

the world.” (1982: 168)

creative space outside, in nature, where she began to work through

documenting, outside of spaces with cultural currency to wastelands,

homelands all. The Silueta Series, made in numerous locations

between 1973 and 1980, draw power and inspiration from location

and the rites and rituals belonging to the land, especially those of

Native Indians, Santeria and Yoruba (west African animist

symbolism). It’s through this geographic re-location that the viewer

can return from the de-individualised artist to witness an artist work

ing through her biography.

In discussing the work of Eva Hesse, Migon Nixon touches on the

ideas of LaPlanche and the relationship between analyst and

analysand, with the analyst offering through transference a place to be

material and found landscapes, come close to this relationship. The

14 15

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Silueta Series, Old Man’s Creek, Iowa. 1967-78 Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Ana Mendieta, Untilled, Silueta Series, Old Man’s Creek, Iowa. 1967-78 Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Ana Mendieta. Untitled, Silueta Series. 1967-78. Lifetime colour photograph.Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

site’s she found, many of which were returned to again and again,

allowed her to invoke the ‘ghost’ within the ‘host’. Transitory being

and transitory making without the desire for longevity, or the presence

of an audience, secludes the work, allowing a sense of commune with

nature, privacy and immediacy.

Much has been written on Mendieta’s yearning, and her quest for

origins. Orphan-hood and exile are frequent touchstones in her

vocabulary. Jean Fisher in her discussion on mystical language

captures another dimension which can illuminate the critical response

to this outsider stance, stating “groundedness is an act of dissent”,

adding “In seeking a place from which to speak, to signify and

recreate the self; “place” becomes the act of signifying itself.”(1995:

Rome, is a palpable psycho-geography: works responding emotionally

to place.

In her appreciation of Mendieta Silueta series Irit Rogoff speaks of

new locations and new materials.” Taking inspiration from Derrida’s

notions of the law of the land, and the Roman act of drawing a circle

Rogoff sees “tangible traces of ownership and cultivation.”(2013)

However, whilst I see Mendieta claimed ownership of her body, the

essential temporary nature of her works in nature, whose existence

rested entirely with nature and the nature of the materials, brings me

Santeria, shedding light on the idea of “monte adentro” translating as

desire to contribute,

“It is only with a real and long enough awakening that a person

becomes present to himself, and it is only with this presence that

a person begins to live like a human being. To know oneself is to

know the world, and it is also paradoxically a form of exile from

the world.” (1982: 168)

creative space outside, in nature, where she began to work through

documenting, outside of spaces with cultural currency to wastelands,

homelands all. The Silueta Series, made in numerous locations

between 1973 and 1980, draw power and inspiration from location

and the rites and rituals belonging to the land, especially those of

Native Indians, Santeria and Yoruba (west African animist

symbolism). It’s through this geographic re-location that the viewer

can return from the de-individualised artist to witness an artist work

ing through her biography.

In discussing the work of Eva Hesse, Migon Nixon touches on the

ideas of LaPlanche and the relationship between analyst and

analysand, with the analyst offering through transference a place to be

material and found landscapes, come close to this relationship. The

14 15

Ana Mendieta, Untitled, Silueta Series, Old Man’s Creek, Iowa. 1967-78 Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Ana Mendieta, Untilled, Silueta Series, Old Man’s Creek, Iowa. 1967-78 Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Ana Mendieta. Untitled, Silueta Series. 1967-78. Lifetime colour photograph.Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

uncultivated land, as one central to working ritually outside, and to

return to, or to go inside that space. Mendieta often returned to sites

the Silueta’s became reworked, re-juvinated, re-ritualized, allowed

multiple lives, but Mendieta never speaks of ownership. Nothing

rests, movement is maintained, agency is given away and the works

existed acutely, “on the level of being in nature and eventually being

return” an artist “(not) staking a claim, (on the land) but personifying

it” in an effort to present “a vision of human production as only one

aspect of a living system.” (2013: 23-24)

“Mendieta wants the public to come upon her outdoor works as one

comes upon nature.” (1979) In presenting these works Mendieta

explored ways and means of activating such a response, printing

images to scale and playing with the idea of placing the photographs o

works of Rome.

and we speak in the hushed tones suited to the environment, shared

thoughts. He speaks of strangeness of the setting, of wanting the real,

to see the work in-situ, wondering what remains. Romantically we

Experienced in-situ, is it art, or an explicit love story? The ground be

comes unsteady, it’s frightening, and exciting. Performance remains

can be some of the most emotionally powerful aspects of an action,

16

Ana Mendieta Late Works: 1981-85Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

when the moment has gone and the site continues to be charged:

retaining energy, speaking of action, and passing time.

Remains generate questions and unique narratives, with the

potential to become intensely personal experiences. In 1977,

versity of Iowa, Mendieta expands this “perhaps my images can lead

the audience to speculation based on their own experience, or what

they might feel I have experienced. Their minds can be triggered

so that the images I present retain some of the quality of the actual

experience.”(Mendieta: 1977) By bringing a dynamic relationship

to life through the triangulation of action, document, and audience,

Mendieta often chose a single image from what was often durational,

involving multiple works. The document was carefully made and

chosen to represent and share. In this precision, what Mendieta gives

is a just a hint, a souvenir, a glimpse at excess, essentially offering a

fragmentary thus feminine way of sharing knowledge, meaning you’ll

never get the whole of the work.

Park in Havana, Mendieta completed a number of goddess forms.

The emotional quality of these works is profoundly different from

what has gone before. Referencing deities from a destroyed culture,

story, made in response to invitation, in a space of sanction, they carry

a calm and graceful ambience. On making the trip, Mendieta said, 17

Ana Mendieta, Itiba Cahubaba, Rupestrian Sculptures, Cuba, 1981. Estate of Ana Mend-ieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

18

New York.” (Mendieta, 1982)

Out of Time

By not being in the work, and using the Silueta as a both universal

symbol and a substitute for self, Mendieta gained artistic freedom and

frequent methods of enacting change. She can be clothed in feathers

or earth, she can lie upon a bleeding heart, and imprint stains, kiss

corpses, but not totally dissolve, not burn.

To locate the meaning of El Yagula Mendieta explained, “The analogy

was that I was covered by time and history.”(1995: 99) Importantly

time and history are distinct materials, combining through a human

need for narrative. As Irit notes her “minor gestures “ can be read as

of time and space.”(2013) And we can see again the progressive ideas

of continental philosophy, where “the search for lost time becomes

the catalyst for a different future.” (Rye Day Holmboe, 2013: 114)

In giving away her body to the earth and a tangle of tiny blossoming

blends but is not obscured, her presence is one of the multiple,

dissolving as time expands to a cosmic oneness.

“My art is grounded in the belief of one universal energy which

“I was afraid before I went there because I felt I’ve been living

has nothing to do with me? But the minute I got there, it was this

whole thing of belonging again.”

In Aurora de Armendi’s project of 2012, “30 years later” the artist

in 1981. The natural processes of weathering have reclaimed the

limestone and the sculptures are slowly being erased. Although just

30 years old, they have, through their disintegration,

achieved the expression of the past Taino culture they represent.

Subtly pointing back through time to monumental moments of history.

Mary Sabbatino, vice President of Galerie Lelong, speaks of the

had made objects in her homeland.” (05.01.14), and her work

totems, and drawings. Exploring form and material and continuing

her dialogue with nature, without being embedded in it, Mendieta

traditional art objects.

between nature and the mythical female body, (that) has evolved

dialectically in response to diverse landscapes as an emotional, Ana Mendieta, Imagen de Yagul, Silueta Series, Mexico 1973-1977. Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Ana Mendieta, Guanaroca, Rupestrian Sculptures, Cuba, 1981. http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/images/objects/size3/CUR.2007.15.jpg 04.06.14

Aurora de Armendi, Cueva del Aguila, Cave of the Eagle, Cuba. 2012. Colour Photograph from the Thirty Years Later Series.

New York.” (Mendieta, 1982)

Out of Time

By not being in the work, and using the Silueta as a both universal

symbol and a substitute for self, Mendieta gained artistic freedom and

frequent methods of enacting change. She can be clothed in feathers

or earth, she can lie upon a bleeding heart, and imprint stains, kiss

corpses, but not totally dissolve, not burn.

To locate the meaning of El Yagula Mendieta explained, “The analogy

was that I was covered by time and history.”(1995: 99) Importantly

time and history are distinct materials, combining through a human

need for narrative. As Irit notes her “minor gestures “ can be read as

of time and space.”(2013) And we can see again the progressive ideas

of continental philosophy, where “the search for lost time becomes

the catalyst for a different future.” (Rye Day Holmboe, 2013: 114)

In giving away her body to the earth and a tangle of tiny blossoming

blends but is not obscured, her presence is one of the multiple,

dissolving as time expands to a cosmic oneness.

“My art is grounded in the belief of one universal energy which

“I was afraid before I went there because I felt I’ve been living

has nothing to do with me? But the minute I got there, it was this

whole thing of belonging again.”

In Aurora de Armendi’s project of 2012, “30 years later” the artist

in 1981. The natural processes of weathering have reclaimed the

limestone and the sculptures are slowly being erased. Although just

30 years old, they have, through their disintegration,

achieved the expression of the past Taino culture they represent.

Subtly pointing back through time to monumental moments of history.

Mary Sabbatino, vice President of Galerie Lelong, speaks of the

had made objects in her homeland.” (05.01.14), and her work

totems, and drawings. Exploring form and material and continuing

her dialogue with nature, without being embedded in it, Mendieta

traditional art objects.

between nature and the mythical female body, (that) has evolved

dialectically in response to diverse landscapes as an emotional, Ana Mendieta, Imagen de Yagul, Silueta Series, Mexico 1973-1977. Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Ana Mendieta, Guanaroca, Rupestrian Sculptures, Cuba, 1981. http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/images/objects/size3/CUR.2007.15.jpg 04.06.14

Aurora de Armendi, Cueva del Aguila, Cave of the Eagle, Cuba. 2012. Colour Photograph from the Thirty Years Later Series.

19

20

runs through everything; from insect to man, from man to

spectre, from spectre to plant, from plant to galaxy. My works

medium of capture. As Rosalind Krauss (1977) has written the era

was one of indexing, of pointing to an event. Mendieta’s pointing

captures both process and distance, she points to “events whose

materiality has escaped us.” (Steward, 1995: 170)

Mendieta’s use of the photograph has added to the heavy weight of

her absence, “Its essence is absence. The absence of the human body,

the absent culture, the absent moment that is only captured on paper

as a photographic echo.” (Rosenthal, 2013: 18) At times there

appears a morning for the momentary, “These performances and

actions were never seen by a public nor did they remain. They

disappeared, reappropriated by the landscape.” (Merewether, 1996:

115) And there is a sensation within her own writings that Mendieta

was aware of this. In her plans to produce a book of photo etchings

from the Rupestrian Sculpture Series with the written myths of the

Tainan woven between the images, Mendieta hoped to resurrect one

culture and inform another, writing, “Because of the impermanence

of much of my earth/body sculptures it has created

misapprehensions.”(1996: 181)

Mendieta understanding of time was one of continual process, history

Mendieta with an untitled wood sculpture, 1984.

com/2014/04/02/ana-mendieta_n_5071279.html?utm_hp_ref=arts&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg0000006706.04.14

Ana Mendieta, Corazón de roca con sangre,

http://blog.uprising-art.com/cifo-collection-cisneros-pardo/ 06.04.14

21

and cosmology were vital sources of strength and inspiration but she

did not thirst for things past, repeatedly stating, “There is no original

past to redeem”, rather her interest lay in provoking new responses to

now through immersion, “I have thrown myself into the very

elements that produced me.” And invoke wonder, a very human

appreciation of the natural world. The ambition of shared experience

is one than runs through many of her writing, “Perceptually, the works `which emphasize natural process would in turn trigger a greater

awareness of nature to the public. And spiritually the enjoyment and

experience of nature would add brightness to people and daily life. “

(Mendieta, 1996: 183)

Resolving Abjection

“The time of abjection is double: a time of oblivion and thunder, of

(Kristeva, 1982: 9)

the cracks, disregarding the boundaries, and emphasizing the

ontological, and the pleasure found in playing within a Latourian

“Parliament of Things.” If Abject is “something rejected

from which one does not part...what disturbs identity, system, order.

ambiguous, the composite.” (Kristeva, 1982: 4) Then yes, Mendieta

Ana Mendieta. Alma Silueta en Fuego (Soul Silhouette on Fire), 1975. Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Ana Mendieta. Untitled, Silueta Series, Iowa, 1980. Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

is abject. Yet through being so, she embodied the openness of Eco,

the becoming of Deleuze, lived Hegel’s Life of the Spirit, and

existed in Heidegger’s ecstasis. A female scientist whose way of

“being-in-the-world” was an affront. Politically active, Mendieta

saw the dominant status quo, consumer culture and social structure

of race/class/sex as a force that “pushes to paralyse social

development... in an effort to have all of society identify with and

serve their own interests” by raising the currency of a culture that

idealises “ways of life and behaviours with a vision of social reality

and history that causes conformism and submission.” (1982) Once

again I can turn to Kristeva, “for abjection, when all is said and done,

is the other facet of religious, moral, and ideological codes on which

rest the sleep of individuals and the breathing spells of societies.”

(1982: 209)

Her stance, her step outside, seemed to embrace the energy of the

push and push it further, explore rupture, to connect to the

fundamental nature of change.

The experience of this walk from has lead me along a timeline to

timelessness. My eyes have felt fully globular, aware of their

casing, the rim of sight. Notes written, circled and re-written, are

almost indecipherable, but the act of writing entwines my own

dialogue with Mendieta’s, to be recalled in a hynagogic echo.

I’ve stood in-front of works with arms raised, and pressed my face

into glass, and it seems time to conclude with a few words on my

personal practice.

22

Ana Mendieta. Untitled, Silueta Series, Iowa, 1977. Lifetime colour photograph. Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York

Taussig, M 1993, Mimesis and Alterity : A Particular History of the Senses, London: Routledge

Taylor, B ed. 2006, Sculpture and Psychoanaylsis, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing

de Zegher, C ed. 1995, Inside the Visible: An Elliptical Traverse of 20th Cen-tury Art in, of, and from the Feminine, Le Praz-de-Lys en Haute-Savoie: Les Editions le Chambre

Zepke, S & O’Sullivan, S eds. 2010 Deleuze and Contemporary ArtEdinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Exhibitions

Hopkins, D After Image: Simryn Gill, Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman and Francesca Woodman 2003, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

Ana Mendieta: Traces 2013, Hayward Gallery, London, UK

Coker, G. Ana Mendieta 1979 A.I.R Gallery, New York, USA

Journals

Cabañas, K M 1999, ‘Pain of Cuba, Body I am’ Woman’s Art Journal vol. 20, no. 1,pp. 12-17

Holmboe, R D ‘If not Now, When? The Question of the Future in Continen-tal Philosophy’ The White Review vol. 4, pp. 114

Krauss, R 1977, ‘Notes on the Index: Seventies Art in America’ October vol. 3, pp. 68-81

Mendieta, A 1987, ‘untitled’ Heresies vol. 5, pp. 69

Artist Writings

Proposal for Cityarts, 1982Proposal for Public Art Project, 1984The Estate of AM Collection, Galeries Lelong, New York, Paris

Online Resources

Armendi, A 05.01.14 http://www.auroradearmendi.com/index.php?/exhibi-tions/mendietas-rupestrian-sculptures/

Sabbatino, M 05.01.14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbYFjJomZag

Warner, M The Writing of Stones 05.10.14 http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/29/warner.php

Talks

Irit Rogoff on Ana Mendieta, Royal Festival Hall, London. 04.11.13

Bibliography

Benthall, J & Polhemus, T eds. 1975, The Body as a Medium of Expression, London: Allen Lane

London: Hayward Publishing

Caillois, R 1938, Le Mythe et l’Homme, Paris: Gallimard

Deleuze, G & Guattari, F 1988, Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizo-phreniatrans. Massumi, B, London: Athlone Press

Franke, A & Folie, S eds. 2012, Animism: Modernity Through the Looking Glass, Wein: Generali Foundation

Guattari, F 2008, The Three Ecologies, London: Continuum

Haraway, D J 1991, Simians, Cyborgs and Women : The Reinvention of Na-ture, London: Free Association Books

Hegel, G W F 2003, The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. Baillie, J B, New York: Dover Publications; 2nd edition

Jung, C G 1968, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. Hull, R F C, London: Rout-ledge & Kegan Paul

London: Routledge

Krauss, R E 1981, Passages in Modern Sculpture, Cambridge, MS; London: MIT Press

Kristeva, J. 1980 Powers of Horror : An Essay on Abjection trans. Leon S. RoudiezNew York: Columbia University Press, 1982

Latour, B 1993, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Porter, C, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press

Latour, B & Weibel, P eds. 2002 Iconoclash, Cambridge, MS; London: MIT Press

Lévi-Strauss, C 1973, Triste Tropiques, trans. John & Doreen Weightman, London: Cape

Mircea, E 1964, Myth and Reality, London: Allen & Unwin

Mircea, E 1989, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. Trask, W R London: Arkana(Penguin)

Moure, G ed. 1996, Ana Mendieta, Barcelona: Ediciones Poligrafa

Sina, A 2012, Feminine Futures: Performance, Dance, War, Politics And Eroti-cism, Paris: Presses du Reel

24 25

Taussig, M 1993, Mimesis and Alterity : A Particular History of the Senses, London: Routledge

Taylor, B ed. 2006, Sculpture and Psychoanaylsis, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing

de Zegher, C ed. 1995, Inside the Visible: An Elliptical Traverse of 20th Cen-tury Art in, of, and from the Feminine, Le Praz-de-Lys en Haute-Savoie: Les Editions le Chambre

Zepke, S & O’Sullivan, S eds. 2010 Deleuze and Contemporary ArtEdinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Exhibitions

Hopkins, D After Image: Simryn Gill, Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman and Francesca Woodman 2003, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

Ana Mendieta: Traces 2013, Hayward Gallery, London, UK

Coker, G. Ana Mendieta 1979 A.I.R Gallery, New York, USA

Journals

Cabañas, K M 1999, ‘Pain of Cuba, Body I am’ Woman’s Art Journal vol. 20, no. 1,pp. 12-17

Holmboe, R D ‘If not Now, When? The Question of the Future in Continen-tal Philosophy’ The White Review vol. 4, pp. 114

Krauss, R 1977, ‘Notes on the Index: Seventies Art in America’ October vol. 3, pp. 68-81

Mendieta, A 1987, ‘untitled’ Heresies vol. 5, pp. 69

Artist Writings

Proposal for Cityarts, 1982Proposal for Public Art Project, 1984The Estate of AM Collection, Galeries Lelong, New York, Paris

Online Resources

Armendi, A 05.01.14 http://www.auroradearmendi.com/index.php?/exhibi-tions/mendietas-rupestrian-sculptures/

Sabbatino, M 05.01.14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbYFjJomZag

Warner, M The Writing of Stones 05.10.14 http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/29/warner.php

Talks

Irit Rogoff on Ana Mendieta, Royal Festival Hall, London. 04.11.13

Bibliography

Benthall, J & Polhemus, T eds. 1975, The Body as a Medium of Expression, London: Allen Lane

London: Hayward Publishing

Caillois, R 1938, Le Mythe et l’Homme, Paris: Gallimard

Deleuze, G & Guattari, F 1988, Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizo-phreniatrans. Massumi, B, London: Athlone Press

Franke, A & Folie, S eds. 2012, Animism: Modernity Through the Looking Glass, Wein: Generali Foundation

Guattari, F 2008, The Three Ecologies, London: Continuum

Haraway, D J 1991, Simians, Cyborgs and Women : The Reinvention of Na-ture, London: Free Association Books

Hegel, G W F 2003, The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. Baillie, J B, New York: Dover Publications; 2nd edition

Jung, C G 1968, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. Hull, R F C, London: Rout-ledge & Kegan Paul

London: Routledge

Krauss, R E 1981, Passages in Modern Sculpture, Cambridge, MS; London: MIT Press

Kristeva, J. 1980 Powers of Horror : An Essay on Abjection trans. Leon S. RoudiezNew York: Columbia University Press, 1982

Latour, B 1993, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Porter, C, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press

Latour, B & Weibel, P eds. 2002 Iconoclash, Cambridge, MS; London: MIT Press

Lévi-Strauss, C 1973, Triste Tropiques, trans. John & Doreen Weightman, London: Cape

Mircea, E 1964, Myth and Reality, London: Allen & Unwin

Mircea, E 1989, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. Trask, W R London: Arkana(Penguin)

Moure, G ed. 1996, Ana Mendieta, Barcelona: Ediciones Poligrafa

Sina, A 2012, Feminine Futures: Performance, Dance, War, Politics And Eroti-cism, Paris: Presses du Reel

24 25