Ana Mendieta
in ‘Liquid Intelligence’ at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
10 October 2023 – 28 January 2024
‘Liquid Intelligence’, 2023, installation view, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Courtesy: © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza; photo: Roberto Ruiz
Ana Mendieta is included in ‘Liquid Intelligence’ at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, a group exhibition addressing the critical state of life in the Ocean that plunges the visitor into the Ocean and its ecosystems to ignite positive action and care for the planet.
A few decades ago, the term liquid intelligence would only be understood as a metaphor, a poetic way of expressing a correspondence between human intelligence (the only one possible until very recently for many), and the intelligence of water. Today, the term is used as the title of this exhibition in a much more assertive and literal way. This exhibition can be read as a cloud of birds or a large school of fish; members of the same species — artworks — belonging to very different moments in history and geographies, are brought together and set in motion to communicate a single idea, that all forms of life are in permanent intercommunication.
The curators, Chus Martínez with Soledad Gutiérrez and María Montero Sierra, have brought together the works of eight artists employing various languages to bring us closer to the Ocean and its aquatic ecosystems: Lucas Arruda, Ana Mendieta, Jumana Manna, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Sonia Levy, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Saelia Aparicio, and Inês Zenha.