Ana Mendieta’s True Legacy Takes Flight at Tate Modern
Artnet News reviews a landmark Ana Mendieta retrospective at Tate Modern, on view through January 17, 2027, arguing it restores the Cuban-American artist’s place in 20th-century American art history. The exhibition emphasizes Mendieta’s cross-disciplinary practice—sculpture, installation, performance, and film—while foregrounding her small-scale land art and “earth-body” concept as a counterpoint to monumental works by contemporaries such as Robert Smithson and Walter de Maria. It features extensive documentation of her 1970s “Siluetas” series, made while she studied at the University of Iowa at Old Man’s Creek, including a multi-screen film installation that marks the U.K. debut of these films and shows her use of earth, water, wind, and fire. The article notes that the show avoids discussion of Mendieta’s 1985 death at age 36 and the controversy surrounding sculptor Carl Andre, focusing instead on her themes of ritual, mythology, nature, and critiques of second-wave feminism’s whiteness, including her 1980 writings.
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