Sweating Blood Work of Late Feminist Artist Often Both Enthralling, Repulsive by Heather Nalbone When visitors enter ìAna Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972-1985,î they are immediately shown the projection of a young artist with her back to the camera, dragging her hands slowly down the wall to create streaks of animal blood and red paint. This ìUntitled (Body Tracks)î film sets the tone for the rest of the 100-piece exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Cuban-born Mendieta came on the art scene in the 1970s, when ìbody artî and ìperformance artî were at a prime in the experimental community. A feminist to the core, Mendieta loved the female body and used it in every way possible, melding it into natural landscapes, carving it into leaves and burning it with gunpowder onto tree trunks. She molded sculptures to symbolize cultural goddesses and used blood to allude to violence against women. For one photo, the artist covered her face and clothing with the crimson fluid in response to a rape at the University of Iowa, where she was a student. ìI started using blood,î she once said, ìI guess because I think itís a very powerful, magical thing. I d onít see it as a negative force.î Her works are as ethereal and mysterious as was the peculiar fall from a high-rise apartment building window that led to her death at the age of 36. (The cause of the fall was never determined.) In one glass case, a series of slides document the reactions of passersby to a pile of animal parts and blood thrown intentionally on a sidewalk. Another film shows the artist pouring blood from a jar onto her naked body before rolling in a pile of feathers. The first room of the Hirshhorn gallery where the ìBody Tracksî film is shown also contains photographs taken from the same angle with a moving camera, as well as paper displays of the same streaky blood and tempera mixture. Such is the nature of the entire exhibit, which can be either enthralling or repulsive depending upon individual taste. It includes a ìSilueta Seriesî (silhouette series)ófilms and photographs in which Mendieta covered her body with flowers, drew the outline of her figure with rocks and vines, and lit her silhouette with fire and gunpowder. Although her career was burgeoning at the time of her premature death, Mendietaís works gained some significant play in the United States. ìHeresies,î a feminist journal in the 1970s, featured her sketches and works in a special edition titled ìGreat Goddess: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics.î Mendieta was born in Havana in the late 1940s, fleeing Fidel Castroís revolution at the age of 12 without her parents. She and her sisters spent many years in the foster care system, and her later professional development is said to have related largely to her painful experience of exile. Eighteen years after her departure, Mendieta began making visits to her native country and developed strong ties with a community of emerging artists there. To this day, she remains the only Cuban expatriate from the United States to have participated fully in Cuban national exhibitions. ìAna Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972-1985î runs through Jan. 2 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Independence Avenue and 7th Street, SW. For more information, please call (202) 633-1000 or visit www.hirshhorn.si.edu. Heather Nalbone is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.