Her shocking performances and stunning images made Mendieta the talk of the art world in the 1970s and 80s. Then she fell from a New York apartment block in 1985 \u2013 and her husband was charged with murder. As a major exhibition comes to London, her friends discuss her genius and their search for answers<\/p>\n
In the summer of 1985, Ana Mendieta was playing with gunpowder and a chainsaw. Just 5ft tall, the Cuban American artist worked outside her studio in Rome, trying to figure out the scale of a new commission for MacArthur Park, Los Angeles. Her idea was to cut up trees and burn the gunpowder directly into them, creating a totem \u201cgrove\u201d inspired by her recent trips to neolithic sites. It was a breakthrough of sorts \u2013 permanent, monumental work that built on her performance art \u2013 and in a photograph of her standing next to a test piece, Mendieta looks proud, excited.<\/p>\n
She had arrived in Italy two years earlier, after winning the prestigious Prix de Rome and a residency at its American Academy. She alienated half the staff, but fell in love with the city, driving like a local (right hand on the wheel, left middle finger out the window). Mendieta admired Roman women, mailing her friend, the film critic B Ruby Rich, a newspaper clipping of a pro-choice demonstration. \u201cShe said, \u2018Look, they\u2019re not like American women,\u2019\u201d remembers Rich. \u201c\u2018They\u2019re showing women butchered and dead from botched abortions. Look how much fiercer they are.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/4c7e536410d3c18add5bca95711bbb66d9620f62\/0_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=96adc3b0362045c1aee798fd5276e424\" "\\"\u2018I")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"