wet on painting feminism and art culture

For both Schor and Faruqee, the role of artists in the political arena is an essential subject for discussion.

And it’s fitting that the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown is using the painting to promote her upcoming virtual conversation, “Art and Activism,” with painter Anoka Faruqee, next Thursday, April 29. But think again: the “not” can be read ironically, echoing surrealist René Magritte’s famous line of text, under the image of a pipe: “ Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” Mira Schor returns home from the Provincetown farmers market in 2016. At first glance, the piece, by artist Mira Schor, could be a protest rally sign. Its flowing script, on an orangey background, is surrounded by a rectangular black frame, anchored by a vertical post. She shows how Mendieta used exile as a discursive position from which to disrupt dominant categories, analyzing as well Mendieta’s use of mythology and anthropology, the ephemeral nature of her media, and the debates over her ethnic, gender, and national identities.Īs the first major critical examination of this enigmatic artist’s work, Where Is Ana Mendieta? will interest a broad audience, particularly those involved with the production, criticism, theory, and history of contemporary art.“ This is not political,” the painting proclaims. Drawing on the work of such theorists as Judith Butler, Joseph Roach, Edward Said, and Homi Bhabha, Blocker discusses the power of Mendieta’s earth-and-body art to alter, unsettle, and broaden the terms of identity itself. Taken from banners carried in a 1992 protest outside the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the title phrase “Where is Ana Mendieta?” evokes not only the suspicious and tragic circumstances surrounding her death but also the conspicuous absence of women artists from high-profile exhibitions. Although her untimely death in 1985 remains shrouded in controversy, her life and artistic legacy provide a unique vantage point from which to consider the history of performance art, installation, and earth works, as well as feminism, multiculturalism, and postmodernism.

In Where Is Ana Mendieta? art historian Jane Blocker provides an in-depth critical analysis of Mendieta’s diverse body of work. Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-born artist who lived in exile in the United States, was one of the most provocative and complex personalities of the 1970s’ artworld.

Wet on painting feminism and art culture