Ana Mendieta

Esculturas Rupestres (Rupestrian Sculptures)

In 1980, Cuban exile Ana Mendieta returned to her homeland for the first time since childhood. Using land as medium, the artist viewed her work as an “act of communion with the earth, a loving return to the maternal breasts.”

In Esculturas Rupestres (Rupestrian Sculptures), Mendieta explores these notions of homecoming through sculptural intervention. Just outside the Cuban capital of Havana, the artist carved several Taíno goddess figures into the limestone caves of Jaruco Park. Through silent film documentation, the artist then surveyed what appear to be pre-colonial petroglyphs etched into the land.

Although Mendieta’s carved sculptures were contemporary, these goddesses, much like the artist herself, have always belonged there. After decades of erosion, the sculptures of Esculturas Rupestres (Rupestrian Sculptures) are now only viewable on film. As a result, Mendieta’s intervention is rooted in the ephemeral, intimately tied to the artist’s sense of time and place.