Body, earth, fire, water, flowers – and the camera as witness. Tate Modern dedicates a major exhibition to Ana Mendieta (1948–1985), one of the most radical and influential multidisciplinary artists of the 1970s and 80s. More than 120 works bring together her iconic Silueta Series, photography and newly remastered films alongside rarely seen paintings and drawings, sculptures and reconstructed installations.
Mendieta dissolved the boundaries between body, landscape, performance, sculpture, photography and film long before such crossovers became commonplace. Her best-known “earth-body” works were created directly in nature: she burned, carved and moulded the contours of the human body into landscapes, beaches and riverbanks, working with soil, fire, flowers and other natural materials. The works themselves were ephemeral – photography and film became the means through which they survived.
At the heart of Mendieta’s work is also her own biography. Born in Havana, she was sent to the United States with her sister at the age of twelve, separated from her family and homeland. Questions of displacement, origin and belonging subsequently run through her practice. In works such as Ochún (1981), created on the shore of Key Biscayne, Florida, she symbolically connects the waters between the US and Cuba; for her Esculturas Rupestres, she carved figures directly into Cuban limestone, drawing on Afro-Cuban traditions and indigenous Taíno culture.
For photographers and image-makers, Mendieta remains particularly fascinating because the photograph is never simply documentation. The action disappears, nature takes the work back – the image remains. Her photographs and films transform fleeting interventions into powerful visual icons, while simultaneously challenging the idea of an artwork as a permanent object.
Tate also brings several ephemeral works back to life. Ñañigo Burial (1976), a Silueta made from black ritual candles, is regularly lit during the exhibition, while an early indoor earth-body installation is reconstructed from branches, leaves, soil, moss and stones. Two tree sculptures even extend Mendieta’s work beyond the museum and into the space outside Tate Modern.
More than four decades after her death, Mendieta’s work feels strikingly contemporary: physical, sensual, political and deeply connected to nature – yet ultimately preserved and communicated through images.
ANA MENDIETA
15 July 2026 – 17 January 2027
