Ana Mendieta comes to Mumbai

Despite the pivotal role that Ana Mendieta (1948–1985) has played in the recent histories of art, “she has for long been under-represented,” feels Gitanjali Dang, who is showcasing the Cuban-American artist’s video works through Khanabadosh, a travelling arts lab that she started in 2012.

An image that is part of the exhibition, Echoes

“If art is about dialogue then I was very keen on setting up a dialogue between Mendieta and Mumbai-based artist Ratna Gupta. Like Mendieta, Ratna too, is interested in undermining the earth-body binary, a spurious division that has been perpetuated across millennia, and is responsible at an everyday level for the global warming crisis we are confronted with,” explains Dang, who has curated the show, titled Echoes.

She reveals that the project took shape as a result of her three-month research at the Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich, last year on a Pro Helvetia curatorial residency. “Towards the end of my time, I was keen to show a few works in India, and Daros Latin America generously agreed to loan these videos without charging a fee, as is normal in such cases, to Khanabadosh,” she shares.