50 Artists: Laura E. Pérez on Ana Mendieta

The thousands of artworks at SFMOMA offer countless opportunities to look closely and think deeply about some of the most amazing artists of our time. To celebrate both the artists on view in the newly expanded museum and the creative communities of the Bay Area, 50 Artists invites local artists and creative professionals to share how icons of modern and contemporary art matter to them. This week, UC Berkeley professor Laura E. Pérez discusses the life and work of Ana Mendieta.

Pérez is an associate professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley, and received her degrees from Harvard University and University of Chicago. She has curated a Latina/o performance art series, co-curated Chicana Badgirls: Las Hociconas (2009) and curated Labor+a(r)t+orio: Latin@ Arts in the Bay Area Now (2011). She is the author of Chicana Art: The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities (Duke University Press, 2007) and the forthcoming Ero-Ideologies: Writings on Art, Spirituality, and the Decolonial (Duke University Press).