[12] Her work was somewhat autobiographical, drawing from her history of being displaced from her native Cuba, and focused on themes including feminism, violence, life, death, identity, place, and belonging.

This obsessive act of reasserting my ties with the earth is really the reactivation of primeval beliefs ... [in] an omnipresent female force, the after image of being encompassing within the womb, is a manifestation of my thirst for being.

[22]  Upon arriving at her apartment, viewers were confronted with the image of Mendieta, naked from the waist down, smeared with blood, bent over, and bound to a table.

It really jolted them"[23] The interaction between the people who stayed to observe and talk about her work (rape scene) and the artist herself (Ana Mendieta) was a means of processing the actual crime that had occurred at the University of Iowa.

[24] Professor and art historian Kaira Cabañas writes about Untitled (Rape Scene): Her body was the subject and object of the work.

The audience was forced to reflect on its responsibility; its empathy was elicited and translated to the space of awareness in which sexual violence could be addressed.

"[25] At the same time, after two years of involvement with A.I.R., she concluded that "American Feminism as it stands is basically a white middle class movement," and she sought to challenge the limits of this perspective through her art.

[26] She met her future husband Carl Andre at the gallery, when he served on a panel titled "How has women's art practices affected male artist social attitudes?

In a 2001 journal article, Kat Griefen, director of A.I.R from 2006 to 2011,[28] wrote, The letter of resignation did not cite any reasons for her departure, but a number of fellow A.I.R.

[34] She often used her naked body to explore and connect with the Earth, as seen in her piece Imagen de Yagul, from the series Silueta Works, Mexico, 1973–1977.

[35] The Silueta Works, Mexico, 1973–1977 series was featured in the group show My Body, My Rules at the Pérez Art Museum Miami between 2020–2021.

[36] Untitled (Ochún) (1981), named for the Santería goddess of waters, once pointed southward from the shore at Key Biscayne, Florida.

Ñañigo Burial (1976), with a title taken from the popular name for an Afro-Cuban religious brotherhood, is a floor installation of black candles dripping wax in the outline of the artist's body.

[39] In Corazon de Roca con Sangre (Rock Heart with Blood) (1975) Mendieta kneels next to an impression of her body that has been cut into the soft, muddy riverbank.

[40] She had returned to the island as a part of a cultural exchange group and was eager to begin exploring her birthplace after having spent 19 years in exile.

The soft limestone and undulating landscapes provided a new scope for Mendieta's art as she began to explore the cultural identity that she had long been forsaken.

[46] The tracks are long, blurry marks made by Mendieta on a large piece of white paper attached to a wall.

The performance was documented in the 1987 film Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra,[48] and described by scholar Alexandra Gonzenbach: In the short piece, the artist enters the studio space, while Cuban music plays in the background.

[46] A still photo from the exhibit was the cover art of the Third Woman Press edition of the feminist anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (2002, ISBN 0943219221).

[53] The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC, and family members found several films after her death while looking for work to be included in a retrospective at the New Museum in 1987.

[2] In 2017, her work was presented in the retrospective solo show Ana Mendieta / Covered in Time and History at Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Sweden.

In 2022, the Hammer Museum at University of California, Los Angeles, organized the exhibition Joan Didion: What She Means, curated by The New Yorker theater critic Hilton Als.

The show traveled to the Pérez Art Museum Miami in 2023, and works by Ana Mendieta were included alongside artworks by 50 other contemporary international artists such as Félix González-Torres, Vija Celmins, Betye Saar, Maren Hassinger, Silke Otto-Knapp, John Koch, Ed Ruscha, Pat Steir, among others.

[70] The group deposited piles of animal blood and guts in front of the establishment, with protesters donning transparent tracksuits with "I Wish Ana Mendieta Was Still Alive" written on them.

In March 2015, the No Wave Performance Task Force and a group of feminist poets from New York City traveled to Beacon, New York, to protest the Andre retrospective at Dia Beacon, where they cried loudly in the main gallery, made "siluetas" in the snow on museum grounds, and stained the snow with paprika, sprinkles, and fake blood.

This was followed by an open letter to Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Director Philippe Vergne protesting the exhibit, from the group the Association of Hysteric Curators.

[69] In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her that began, "Mendieta's art, sometimes violent, often unapologetically feminist and usually raw, left an indelible mark before her life was cut short.

"[73] In February 2024 it was announced that Academy award nominee America Ferrera would star in and executive produce an Amazon Prime Video series about Mendieta.

The work is based on a book by Robert Katz, to be scripted by Cherise Castro Smith and co-executive produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Plan B Entertainment.

[74] The title character of Xochitl Gonzalez’s sophomore novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, is closely based on Mendieta, to whom the work is dedicated.