Contemporary Myths III

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’ art world. In Where is Ana Mendieta? art historian Jane Blocker provides an in-depth critical analysis of Mendieta’s diverse body of work. 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.

Taken from banners carried in a 1992 protest outside the Guggenheim Museum, 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. 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. 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 ephemerality of her media, and the debates over her ethnic, gender, and national identities.

Documentation from an online lecture by Ron Athey on Penetration in Live Art and Video. This lecture formed part of LADA’s 2020 Summer Programme.

Penetration – be it bodily, spiritual or sexual – is a recurring motif in Ron Athey‘s work. In this lecture, which comes as he begins work on a new project, Athey will explore the artistic potential of the contemporary post-porn movement in relation to his practice.

A publication with an essay by Stephen Ellcock in which he exemplifies the spiritual and mythological references in Delaine Le Bas’s work and in particular in the installation conceived for the Secession with references from Greek mythology and ancient Egyptian death cults.

Languages: German, English

Documentation from the 672 Hour Live Process Performance in Istanbul, 2018. Includes the poster, individual videos of performances, and a document with details on all performances.

Reaffirms the central position of the body in various artistic practices through in-depth conversations with choreographers, composers, visual artists, hip hop artists, dramaturges, a light designer and a puppeteer.

Includes: It’s an Earthquake in My Heart: Reading Companion; The Sea & Poison: Reading Companion; North True South Free; The Lastmaker

Print newsletter from Create Ireland; includes an interview with Sandra Noeth. May 2017.

An absorbing portrait of an artist whose career spans three decades of American avant-garde performance. Collecting writings by Monk herself, along with significant reviews, essays, interviews, and photographs of Monk’s unique performance events, the book establishes her as one of the great treasures of contemporary American culture.

Existing in the space between imaginative proposition and a call to action, the book is an assemblage of provocations, proposals and potential ways of operating
 — ranging from navigating the city and inhabiting the margins to errant acts of reading; from preparing for the unexpected 
to learning how to ‘not know’, from minor acts of singular sedition to collective expressions of an insurgent ‘we’.

This collection of essays sheds new light on the political, ethical and aesthetic potential of participatory artworks and tests the very latest theoretical approaches to this subject.

Artists’ events, projects and publications curated, commissioned and produced from December 1979 to the present day. Found in miscellaneous article folder #5B

This item is part of the ‘Glimpses of before: 1970s UK Performance Art’ Study Room Guide by Helena Goldwater (P2497)

Artist Ruth Ewan invited Strood residents to share their skills and knowledge of the town’s heritage, hidden stories, myths past and present, to be weaved into a subversive pantomime for the town. This performance programme includes the full script, invited writings and local archive material.

Performed on 22nd December 2015.