Project of First Exhibition: Ana Mendieta Retrospective

The first exhibition of World Creole Museum is “Ana Mendieta Retrospective”. She was a Cuban born Artist who worked in the United States, so she would be an ideal person to inaugurate the history of this museum. This exhibition is open from April 1 to September 31 for half a year.

Ana Mendieta’s theme of art is nature, mystery and her female body itself. Mendieta sought to establish a dialog between the landscape and the female body and to return to the maternal source. She envisioned the female body as a primal source of life and sexuality, as a symbol of the ancient paleolithic goddesses. Between 1973 and 1980, Mendieta created her signature series, entitled "Silueta" or silhouette. Here, Mendieta used her body or images of her body in combination with natural materials. The pieces were transient, created and then photographed just before or during their destruction. The materials used were highly symbolic. Mendieta used flowers as mediums in her series, quoting the folk traditions of Mexico. Her primary material was the earth itself. In her "Tree of Life" series, she covered her naked body with mud and posed against a tree.

Ana Mendieta died in 1985 at age thirty-six, the result of a fall from an apartment window in New York. She left over 200 photographs documenting her body works, and a generation indebted to her innovation and ideals. For this exhibition, World Creole Museums will collect her important works from museums such as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary art, Los Angeles and Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C.

This exhibition is the most important exhibition for the year and because it will inaugurate the museum’s programs, so we will spend an exceptional amount on it, almost $400,000 include acquisition of her artwork. The Salary and Wages shows the half of the year, so for the sub-exhibition for small rooms about anthropological theme does not need to account for these salaries.

The art works of Ana Mendieta are loaned from other museums by $70,000 budget. There are 50 photographs, 2 video installations, one slide show and 3 sculptures. The catalogue is also important to launch the message of this museum to the world so WCM spend huge power to design this catalogue. The cost for one catalogue is $10 and we make 1,500 copies by $15,000.

Also WCM acquires one of her photographs and it costs $50,000. This photograph will be the part of the permanent collection.

We have allocated half our salary cost for the year to this exhibition. Half year salary cost is $182,500 and the total salary for one year is 36.5% of annual budget. The museum is located in Arizona, so the salaries and wages are not so high compare to other museums in city areas. However, this location is also disadvantage for shipping the works and traveling, so there is $8,000 budget for shipping and travel. Exhibition and education are the crucial for the museums so the budget for exhibition is $90,500 and education is $10,000.

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