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Ana Mendieta — Untitled: Silueta Series, Mexico
Ana Mendieta

Untitled: Silueta Series, Mexico

Ana Mendieta's *Untitled: Silueta Series, Mexico* (1980) captures a life-sized human silhouette carved directly into a claybed in Oaxaca, Mexico, merging the artist's bodily presence with the earth itself. The work belongs to Mendieta's celebrated Silueta Series, in which she repeatedly imprinted, traced, or sculpted her form into natural landscapes across Mexico and Iowa, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and the relationship between the female body and the land. The photograph documenting this ephemeral gesture preserves an intimate dialogue between absence and presence, as the carved impression evokes both a corporeal trace and a ritualistic return to the earth.

Medium
dated and annotated 'Silueta Series, Oaxaca, Mexico' and 'carved claybed / Figure is lifesize' in pencil on the reverse, framed, an Alison Jacques Gallery label on the reverse, 1980

🔨 Auction Lot

Contemporary Photographs

September 27, 2019

Estimate: $20,000$30,000

Lot 16

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About this work

Ana Mendieta, Untitled: Silueta Series, Mexico

Ana Mendieta's *Untitled: Silueta Series, Mexico* (1980) captures a life-sized human silhouette carved directly into a claybed in Oaxaca, Mexico, merging the artist's bodily presence with the earth itself. The work belongs to Mendieta's celebrated Silueta Series, in which she repeatedly imprinted, traced, or sculpted her form into natural landscapes across Mexico and Iowa, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and the relationship between the female body and the land. The photograph documenting this ephemeral gesture preserves an intimate dialogue between absence and presence, as the carved impression evokes both a corporeal trace and a ritualistic return to the earth.

Medium
dated and annotated 'Silueta Series, Oaxaca, Mexico' and 'carved claybed / Figure is lifesize' in pencil on the reverse, framed, an Alison Jacques Gallery label on the reverse, 1980
Seen at
Sotheby's, New York, London, Hong Kong, Paris

Related themes

Conceptual, Figure, Body Art, Clay, Cuban, Performance, Silueta, Earth Tones, Earthy, Contemporary

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