Review: Ana Mendieta, Jeu de Paume
Ginevra Bria, Domus
November 2018
“So will I build my altar in the fields, / And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, / And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields / Shall be the incense I will yield to thee.” In these Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s verses (To Nature, 1820), building and yielding are not only gestures but they both represent extremities within which humans should have an effect on earth, a connection to transcend it. Ana Mendieta (Havana, 1948 – New York, 1985) used both building and yielding, shrouded in nature, to transcend not only her effects on earth but even stills and moving images, documenting her performative interventions. […]