Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants)

Born in Havana in 1948, Ana Mendieta came to the United States after being exiled from Cuba in 1961. Although she worked at times in Cuba, Mexico, and Italy, her primary residence was in New York from 1978 until her death in 1985. Mendieta is best known for what she called “earth-body works,” and her practice centered on themes of the female body, death, cultural displacement, and transformation.

Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants) documents a performance in which Mendieta glued her friend Morty Sklar’s beard onto her own face. Mendieta was one of the first female artists to investigate the transformative abilities of hair and its implications at the level of gender.