Happy Earth Day! In need of relevant reading? Why not peruse Charlotte Jansen’s feature on some of the contemporary female artists who “have placed women’s bodies in pastoral settings” in order to subvert the misogynistic art historical tropes surrounding the subject. This includes Ana Mendieta, an early pioneer of both body and land art, “who forged new dialogues between her body and the environment, directly addressing the idea of the earth as the mother of humanity”. This incendiary image is part of Mendieta’s 1979 series Volcán, which saw her sculpt a female figure from earth before activating the anthropomorphic form with gunpowder.
