Sweating Blood

United States c.1974, Super 8 film transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min

United States 1975, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 6 min

A dead tree. A body. Ocean waves.

A film by Ana Mendieta

Mendieta, Ana: Burial Pyramide, Yagul, Mexico.

Ana Mendieta, 1975

Volcán captures a raised mound of earth set against a grassy riverbank. A white silhouette in the shape of a female body lies atop of the form. The same shot then cuts to a frame where the base of the white figure spontaneously starts smoking. It then quickly sets aflame. As it combusts, a deep cavity is revealed, even as it is cloaked in growing flames and smoke, evoking a volcanic eruption. Finally, the entire body is engulfed so that only ashes remain in the negative space, human remains. Mendieta short the work in 1975 at Old Man’s Creek in Sharon Center, Iowa, near where the artist was living at the time.

Ana Mendieta, 1974

A single-channel video (transferred from Super-8 film), color, silent, where we watch the artist from behind as she traces a rough outline of her body in blood against a white wall.

In X-Ray, Ana Mendieta uses a Cinefluorography unit, a medical tool usually employed for diagnostic and research procedures. In Mendieta’s hands, she takes us inside her own head, filming her own X-Rayed skull while talking.

A film by Ana Mendieta

This film is a performance that the artist undertook at Old Man’s Creek, Sharon Center, Iowa City, Iowa. The performance was recorded on Super-8 film and 35mm slides. The film shows Mendieta standing naked on the sandy bank on one side of the creek, in front of flowing water and a steep mud bank on the other side. After looking directly at the camera, she raises a flask to shoulder level and begins pouring blood down her chest, legs and stomach. She then reaches over her shoulders to include her back, and covers her arms before casting the empty vessel aside. Dropping to the ground, she plunges face-first into a heap of white feathers where she slowly rolls back and forth, adhering the feathers to the sticky blood on her skin. Finally, she rises slowly to stand with her arms held away from her body but bent at the elbow as though she is imagining being a bird with wings. She holds this position for a few seconds before the film ends.

Captures students at Henry Sabin Elementary School in Iowa City holding a circular parachute and pulling down to catch the air's resistance.

United States / Mexico 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min

This film shows the artist, covered in white bird feathers, running along the shoreline of La Ventosa beach in Oaxaca, Mexico.

A film by Ana Mendieta