Naked by the Window: The Fatal Marriage of Carl Andre and Ana Mendieta

This is a fascinating account of the life, and untimely death, of the gifted Cuban artist Ana Mendieta. The writer, Robert Katz says, I have "sought to narrate these events as they were revealed to me, certainly not chronologically or in any other 'logical' way." In spite of the odd sequence in the recounting of events it is a riveting read. Ana Mendieta was lovely, free-spirited, magnetic, and a rising star in the art world. Her tragic fall from a NYC highrise is a great, and enduring loss to the world. Carl Andre is depicted as a complicated, proud, eccentric individual. He had fatal flaws in his character, and at the time of Ana's death his star was descending. Nevertheless, he was an iconic figure who was defended, and protected, by his powerful and wealthy friends in the art world. A burning question remains, did Andre get away with murder?

this is an amazing book about our art world. Two big personalities clashing, outspoken women going down, an important voice lost.

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban-born girl who moved to Iowa in the early 1960's as part of "Operation Peter Pan", a relocation program for Cuban children. First she was placed with her sister in an orphanage in Dubuque, before finally reuniting with her family in Cedar Rapids. The Cuban girl Mendieta grew into a beautiful woman who began expressing herself in performance art and sculpture with themes relating to the practice of Santeria, blood, earth, birth and death within the contexts of primitive Hispanic symbolism. In short, she was brilliant. However, she had a predisposition to form relationships with her artistic mentors. One of these was Carl Andre, an established minimalist sculptor that Mendieta married, using him as a bridge to join the New York art establishment. Mendieta eventually became disenchanted with the bearded Andre, a rather odd and stilted personality, perpetually clad in Grant Wood-style overalls. She made plans for a divorce, but tragically died in a fall from the thirty-fourth floor New York apartment of Andre. A trial ensued, in which most of the New York art establishment remained in solidarity with Andre, even though the alibi that he offered--that Mendieta committed suicide in a fit of jealousy--lacked plausibility. There simply was not enough evidence for the judge (Andre opted to forego a jury trial) to convict, and so justice was denied for yet another woman who lacked the power given her male counterpart. This is a fascinating story that could have been told in a better form--this book has a fractured format which hacks up Mendieta's life and death instead of presenting it logically. But, as the best book available on the subject, it deserves your attention.