“Ana Medieta: Traces" at the Figge Art Museum -- August 29 through February 28. * (image credit below)
Saturday, August 29, through Sunday, February 28
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Exploring how the artist used her body to engage with the landscape and create powerful works of art, the fascinating exhibition Ana Mendieta: Traces will be on view in the Figge Art Museum's Gallery 206 from August 29 through February 28, the displayed works generously lent to the Davenport venue by the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art.
The exhibition features Mendieta’s photography and films, including works from her iconic Silueta series. In these works, she traced or imprinted her body’s silhouette in materials such as sand, earth, and flowers. As Mendieta wrote, “My art is the way I reestablish the bonds that tie me to the universe.” At the forefront of video art and the feminist art movement of the 1970s, Mendieta’s time at the University of Iowa was foundational to her practice. Born in Cuba in 1948, Mendieta passed away in New York City in 1985, and she lived much of her life in political exile. Her experience of being uprooted and her explorations of identity, memory, and displacement have powerful resonance today.
Over the course of her career, Mendieta created works in Cuba, Mexico, Italy, and the United States. Her work was somewhat autobiographical, drawing from her history of being displaced from her native Cuba, and focused on themes including feminism, violence, life, death, identity, place, and belonging. Many of her works included ephemeral outdoor performances and photographs, sculptures and drawings. Her works are generally associated with the four Classical elements. Mendieta often focused on a spiritual and physical connection with the earth.
Mendieta felt that by uniting her body with the earth she could become whole again, and as the artist stated: "Through my earth/body sculptures, I become one with the earth ... I become an extension of nature and nature becomes an extension of my body. This obsessive act of reasserting my ties with the earth is really the reactivation of primeval beliefs ... [in] an omnipresent female force, the after image of being encompassing within the womb, is a manifestation of my thirst for being." During her lifetime, Mendieta produced more than 200 works of art using earth as a sculptural medium, and her techniques were largely influenced by Afro-Cuban traditions.
* Image credit: Ana Mendieta, American/Cuban, 1948-1985, Untitled “Silueta Series Mexico,” 1976, silver-dye bleach print, From the estate of Marlene R. Moskowitz, donated in her memory by her children, Howard R. Gerwin and Carol S. Gerwin, University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, 2022.10, © 2026 The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC.
Ana Mendieta: Traces will be on display in the Davenport venue's Gallery 206 from August 29 through February 28, with regular museum hours 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays through Saturdays (10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursdays) and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Museum admission is $8-14, and more information on the exhibit is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.
