Mendietas Gender Examinations and Her Place as a Woman and as an Case Study

Mendietas Gender Examinations and Her Place as a Woman and as an Artist - Case Study prototypeAna Mendieta, a Cuban American artist most famous for her performance art and earth- embody sculptures, documents through photography her more memorable art such as the series of performances from 1972, the Facial Hair Transplants. In these performances, a potent student, Morty Sklar, shaves his beard and moustache while Mendieta applies the pieces of hair to her face. Through these satirical transferals of hair to her own face, she in effect assumes the symbols of male power. In one of the portraits, bearded, she reveals herself as an earnest Amish farmer. In another photograph, she is outfitted with a curled moustache complete with gold grille earrings, so she appears as a mischievous, devilish pirate. What these photographs show are Mendietas gender examinations as she strives to find her place as a woman and as an artist. As contemporary photographers continue their ongoing dialogue o f the difference between photographs as documents and photographs as pictures, I believe that Mendietas photographs can be defined as a document and as a picture both. A document is defined as a bounded physical representation of the body of information designed with the capacity and usually the intent to communicate. A document may manifest symbolic, diagrammatic or sensory-representational information. Given that the original presentation of Mendietas piece was a performance and then captured via photograph, her faces can be considered as the physical representation of the information Mendietas is trying to capture, that she is able to assume the symbols of male power as she tries to understand her place in the art world.