#photodocumentation

Ana Mendieta  (1948-85) Cuba/ USA    

Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants)

A    artsandculture.google 

Cuban artist Ana Mendieta’s (1948–1985, Cuba)early series Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants), 1972, documents a performance in which she glued fragments of her fellow student Morty Sklar’s beard onto her own female face, highlighting the idea that binary gender classifications are social constructions that frame and overdetermine sexualities. By hybridising her identity, Mendieta problematised those classifications, suggesting that so-called masculine identity as expressed throughfacial hair is nothing but artifice.

What does it mean to be a man today? The Barbican's Masculinities: Liberation through Photography considers how masculinity has been coded, performed, and socially constructed from the 1960s to the present day.

B     posted by Ashley A.    womenartandculture.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/ana-mendietas-untitled-facialhair.html

 Ana Mendieta’s “Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants)”

is a unique work that examines the boundary of what is typical for men and women.  In this 1972 work, Mendieta transfers the beard of a fellow student at the time, Morty Sklar, onto her own face.  The actual work is a group of photographs documenting the process and final result.  This was one of Mendieta’s earliest works.  She completed it while at graduate school in the University of Iowa (Heuer, 2011).  This piece is closely related with a few other pieces that Mendieta completed around this time.  They are related in Mendieta’s alterations of her image to something out of the norm.  These pieces are unique in Mendieta’s art since they show the fairly unobstructed images of Mendieta’s own face.  Many of her later works, especially the Silueta series, focus more on the body and the elements.  In this work, Mendieta creates a paradox in regards to tone.  By adorning her face with the facial hair, she is playful, almost in the same way a young girl could dress up in her father’s clothing, but it is the underlying themes and meaning in this work that give it a more serious tone. 

                Ana Mendieta addressed several themes in her Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants) ...  One of the biggest themes present in this piece is the theme of gender.  Mendieta is blatant with her manipulation of gender in this piece.  Much like in Lorber’s, “Night to his Day”, she challenges beliefs about innate behavior in regards to gender (Lorber 33).  By adorning her own face with a man’s facial hair, she goes against the “expected”...  The idea [that] gender binaries trap and ostracize people who may not fit perfectly within their borders.  Mendieta takes a stand in a way against these stereotypes in this art work.  I believe that is what makes this piece a feminist piece.  Mendieta challenges the stereotypes that surround how a woman should act, and also challenges the stereotypes that surround feminism.  As in Seely’s “F-Word Introduction”, Mendieta addresses the stereotypes that have been given to feminism, and does well to challenge the binary that has been created in society (Seely 2).