Your guide to Ana Mendieta

This exhibition shines a light on Cuban-born American artist, Ana Mendieta’s trailblazing practice. Featuring over 120 works, you will encounter many of her iconic artworks alongside newly remastered films, early paintings, late sculptural pieces and even works outside the gallery walls.

Enjoy this opportunity to experience the powerful work of a multidisciplinary artist, whose legacy changed the course of contemporary art.

1. She challenged traditional ideas of art  

Active in the 1970s and 80s, Mendieta was a multidisciplinary artist. Her work includes sculpture, photography, drawing, live actions and film. She developed her artistic practice on the cutting-edge Intermedia programme at the University of Iowa between 1972-1974. Largely self-directed and peer-led, the course was a place for artists experimenting with conceptual and cross-disciplinary practices. Mendieta held an important role in this artistic community, arguing for forms of art that go beyond the production of static objects.

2. She is best known for her Silueta Series

Ana Mendieta started her Silueta Series during a trip to Mexico in 1973, where she was inspired to create life-size ephemeral works. Throughout her career, she carved and moulded the outline or silhouette of a figure into landscapes across the Americas and Europe. She often returned to sites which were meaningful to her or connected to ancient histories. This series was recorded as photographs and films and has become Mendieta’s best-known body of work. She referred to the work Imágen de Yágul, as her first Silueta.

3. Her work engaged with the natural world 

Demonstrating a persistent engagement with the natural world, Mendieta frequently used materials she collected outside within her work. This included snow, sand, flowers and grass. The exhibition includes large-scale sculptures made in wood, works from the artist’s ‘Amategram’ series, which demonstrates her use of bark paper, and delicate drawings on leaves.

4. She worked with film

While Mendieta did not consider herself a filmmaker, she made more than 100 films and videos in her lifetime. She took an innovative approach to the medium, scratching the celluloid, and experimenting with Super 8, 16mm and video.

5. Her work explored identity

Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1948, Ana Mendieta was exiled to the United States with her older sister after the Cuban Revolution. At only 12 years old she was separated from her parents, brother and homeland.

A student of archaeology and art at the University of Iowa, she created various works that re-establish and renew her connections to her country. Mendieta's work, and her constant efforts to reconnect with her roots, allow us to reflect on ideas of displacement and identity that remain highly relevant today.

Ñañigo Burial, 1976

Mendieta originally made Ñañigo Burial for an exhibition at 112 Green Street, New York in 1976. She installed 47 black candles in the shape of a body with raised arms, on the gallery floor. The scale of the shape was based on her own body. The candles were then lit and left for the wax to melt down onto the floor. This created a Silueta form in molten wax.

Offering a chance to engage directly with impermanent aspects of Mendieta’s practice, Ñañigo Burial will be restaged at Tate Modern and regularly lit throughout the duration of the exhibition following the cycles of the moon.

Untitled: Silueta Series, 1978

The exhibition features a recreation of Untitled: Silueta Series, bringing a forest-like environment into the gallery space. Initially made in 1978, at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury, the work is assembled from branches, leaves, soil, moss and stones.

For this exhibition at Tate Modern, the work has been re-imagined in the spirit of the artist’s practice and uses locally sourced, natural materials. Rather than a forest that can be entered, the piece is designed to be viewed from afar and is an example of Mendieta’s ephemeral sculptures.

Ana Mendieta is on at Tate Modern 15 July 2026 – 17 Jan 2027

All Artworks © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, 2026 / Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery and Alison Jacques, London. Installation photography © Tate (Yili Liu and Sonal Bakrania).