Ana Mendieta at Tate Modern: Major Retrospective of Cuban Pioneer

Tate Modern in London is preparing the UK’s largest exhibition dedicated to Ana Mendieta, the Cuban artist who revolutionized contemporary art by fusing body, earth, and spirituality. From July 15, 2026 to January 17, 2027, 150 works will transform the museum’s galleries into a tribute to one of the most powerful voices in feminist art.

A Cuban who shaped world art

Born in Havana in 1948, Ana Mendieta arrived in the United States at age 12 as part of Operation Peter Pan, the program that sent over 14,000 Cuban children into exile between 1960 and 1962. That rupture from her homeland would mark her entire artistic output.

“I have been carrying on a dialogue between the landscape and the female body. The work has to do with a return to the Mother Earth” — Ana Mendieta

From her residence in Iowa, where she studied art, Mendieta began creating works that challenged the boundaries between performance, sculpture, and land art. Her famous Silueta Series (1973-1985) includes over 200 works where she imprinted her body’s form in nature using earth, flowers, fire, water, and blood.

Tate Modern brings the earth inside

The exhibition promises something never seen before: the recreation of her earth-body works in an indoor space. Curators will work with branches, moss, soil, and stone to literally bring the outside into the museum, allowing visitors to experience the visceral connection between body and nature that defined Mendieta’s work.

Featured pieces include:

• Restored films never before exhibited in the UK
• The iconic Rupestrian Sculptures (goddesses carved into rock)
• Photographs from the Silueta Series from Mexico to Iowa
• Rarely displayed paintings and drawings

Afro-Cuban roots, universal vision

Mendieta’s work is deeply influenced by Yoruba and Afro-Cuban traditions. Her silhouettes evoke orisha deities, and her reverence for earth as a sacred feminine entity connects with the Lucumí worldview that persists in Cuba.

“Mendieta knew how to translate Cuban spirituality into a language that resonated globally,” notes art critic Waldemar Januszczak. “If not for Frida Kahlo, she would be the most influential Latin American artist of the 20th century.”

A life cut short

Ana Mendieta’s death at 36 remains shrouded in controversy. In 1985, she fell from the 34th floor of her Manhattan apartment. Her husband, sculptor Carl Andre, was tried and acquitted of murder, but the case continues to generate debate in the art world.

Tate Modern seeks with this exhibition to focus attention on her artistic legacy, beyond the circumstances of her death. “She has been defined too long by her tragic end. It’s time to see the full power of her work,” the curators explain.

Cuba in London

The Mendieta exhibition joins an extraordinary moment for Cuban art in the United Kingdom. New York’s MoMA is also currently exhibiting Wifredo Lam, another giant of Cuban art, while the Screen Cuba festival will bring Cuban cinema to London in March.

For Cubans in the diaspora and for anyone interested in understanding how exile, identity, and connection to the earth can be transformed into transcendent art, this retrospective is an unmissable date.

Ana Mendieta
📍 Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG
📅 July 15, 2026 – January 17, 2027
🎟️ Tickets at tate.org.uk