Untitled (Guanaroca [First Woman])
About this Brooklyn Icon
The Brooklyn Museum is commemorating its 200th anniversary by spotlighting 200 standout objects in its encyclopedic collection.
Ana Mendieta’s Silueta (Silhouette) and Esculturas Rupestres (Cave Sculptures) series (created between 1973 and 1980) were groundbreaking in their use of nontraditional art materials—such as mud, rock, sand, plants, and even gunpowder, usually in the shape of a female figure—to convey the interweaving of personal experiences and political themes of feminism, environmentalism, and exile. In Untitled (Guanaroca [First Woman]), Mendieta carved an abstracted female form into a soft limestone cave wall in Cuba, the land from which she was forced to immigrate as a child, and to which she returned as an adult. The title and voluptuous shape of the work refer to ancient Indigenous goddess and fertility figures as well as Mendieta’s own body and her relationship with the earth.
Like much of Mendieta’s work of this time, the ephemeral organic materials making up these silhouetted figures—and the actions or performances by the artist that inscribed them into the landscape—are documented through photographs and film. Although Mendieta’s work defies easy categorization, it is generally considered to be part of the movement known as Land Art, which includes such artists as Beverly Buchanan, Agnes Denes, Nancy Holt, and Robert Smithson and the body art movement, epitomized by Marina Abramović and Carolee Schneemann, among others.
Object Label
Ana Mendieta: Place and Presence
Before graduating from the University of Iowa in 1972, Ana Mendieta had already embarked upon her unique practice of blending photography, body art, earth art, and performance art as she addressed the emergence of feminism and her experience as a Cuban exile.
For her iconic Silueta series, Mendieta placed her body in the landscape, using materials such as crushed flowers, sculpted mud, or ignited gunpowder to literally inscribe her silhouette, and then documented the ephemeral results through photographs and films. Returning to Cuba in 1980 and 1981, she continued to trace female forms on the ground, as in the pieces executed on the beach in Guanabo. She also began carving fertility figures into the caves and cliffs of her native land, which she called Rupestrian Sculptures. Many of these, such as the large Untitled (Guanaroca [First Woman]), were named after indigenous goddesses, simultaneously serving as political and personal assertions of Mendieta’s presence and identity, as well as reminders of ancient traditions of goddess worship.
Caption
Ana Mendieta American, born Cuba, 1948–1985. Untitled (Guanaroca [First Woman]), 1981/1994. Gelatin silver photograph, 53 1/2 × 39 1/2 in. (135.9 × 100.3 cm) frame: 57 1/2 × 43 1/4 × 2 1/2 in. (146.1 × 109.9 × 6.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Stephanie Ingrassia, 2007.15. © artist or artist's estate
Tags
Gallery
Not on view
Gallery
Not on view
Artist
Title
Untitled (Guanaroca [First Woman])
Date
1981/1994
Medium
Gelatin silver photograph
Classification
Dimensions
53 1/2 × 39 1/2 in. (135.9 × 100.3 cm) frame: 57 1/2 × 43 1/4 × 2 1/2 in. (146.1 × 109.9 × 6.4 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Stephanie Ingrassia
Accession Number
2007.15
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
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