A Lesson In Phrasing And Accountability
This will be brief, because the lesson enclosed is not difficult to understand.
The sensationally-titled, new podcast “Death of an Artist”, hosted by the celebrity critic, Helen Molesworth, recently published an epilogue.
I’ve been waiting for this episode. I knew it was coming. The podcast’s inevitable epilogue came out a month after the “last” episode aired on November 4, 2022. In that time, peers and colleagues have shared individual episodes, flooding my social media feeds, praising Molesworth and the show for “sharing Ana’s story”. At the same time, I’ve seen reviews criticizing the podcast for revisiting Mendieta’s death through the lens of true-crime and failing “to assert basic humanity” while concluding with “more discussion on cancel culture, essentially recycling the debates of every other cultural sector of society, albeit with less conviction,” (https://hyperallergic.com/785803/the-death-of-an-artist-podcast-failed-ana-mendieta/).
Less conviction because Molesworth is clearly afraid of becoming even more criticized and even more ostracized, both by her employers and her audience. Molesworth, who in the epilogue claims “loyalty” as one of her practiced values, has a lot to lose. She has risen to celebrity status and has a platform that reaches beyond the formal academic; she has worked hard and her stakes are very high. If she took the big step that no one else of her stature dares to do— the step where she drops the word “alleged” and puts her career and reputation on the line to call the show’s silent antagonist, Carl Andre, what he probably is… if she used her power to name Andre as Ana Mendieta’s murderer… well, I don’t blame her for not doing it, but I think I might like her even more if she did.
Regardless, Molesworth doesn’t do that. Nor do the show writers, producers, or editors. Instead, they made a show titled “Death of an Artist”.
The title alone is where I take issue. The phrase “death of an artist” tells the reader/viewer/listener that there was an artist, Ana Mendieta, and that artist died. This is what we can say for absolute certain. This what the show can say for certain without losing their funding and other resources. It’s what the show’s team can claim without taking the risk of reopening a controversial wound, even if in pursuit of closure. If the show’s title does anything, it isn’t being a necessary catalyst for the visceral beauty of a long awaited act of dehiscence. Instead, “death of an artist” is the tragic reminder that money and reputation continue to stand in the way of reparative justice for Ana Mendieta’s legacy and anyone who identifies with it. This includes anyone who isn’t a rich, white, straight, cis man and has felt the brutality of a culture’s violent abandonment.
I have neither external resources or funding going into this blog’s journalistic pursuits. I have nothing to lose. If anything, I have something to gain by naming what is probably the truth, because I identify with Ana Mendieta’s legacy. At the risk of my closure coming at the cost of being “sensational”— which it hardly is because everyone can likely guess what I’m compelled to say— I feel society needs a lesson in sentence structure.
Long have I rattled off the phrases “my traumas”, “I was abused”, “I was raped”, and the usual response is something unproductive, like “thank you for sharing your story”. It wasn’t until I attended a workshop for learning skills to confront traits of misogyny in the classroom that I learned claiming ownership over those experiences only continued my pain and suffering. The traumatic experiences I encountered are not mine. I was not abused; someone abused me. I was not drugged, someone drugged me. I was not raped; someone raped me. This does not erase my own actions which enabled my involvement in the horrific things that happened to me, but it places the accountability on the people who perpetuate the systemic power that protects people like Carl Andre. People who are rich, white, straight, cis men, and who can kill.
I am not here to squabble over alleged truths. People will believe what they want to believe, and they usually believe whatever will benefit them. I believe Ana Mendieta was murdered; it benefits my personal ability to heal when I believe that notion. However, there is a bigger issue here than our own personal investments: despite its subtlety, it is most important we begin using language, spoken or written, that is both certain and holds those in power accountable for how they wield it.
Carl Andre’s image is still in the media— we still see his face when he has an exhibition, when we look at his sculptures, and because I know the story, when I see Ana’s face I also see his. The time has come, and I need to divorce his image from hers— it is not the responsibility of Ana Mendieta’s story to carry Carl Andre’s burden. I don’t believe Ana was a victim— if you look at her work and her life, she is anything but a victim. Attaching his shame to her story does not honor Ana Mendieta’s legacy; it obstructs it. Andre’s name is still around us, aggrandized by the majority in only one kind of light, while Ana Mendieta’s memory is treated like a dumping ground for Andre’s lesson to learn. This isn’t hard to understand: language is powerful and significant to how we process painful and public events, and clearly the accountable don’t want us to understand that.
Maybe, next time, a podcast will be hosted and produced by people who can take a step forward— not a giant leap that speculates, but a step that, at the very least, moves toward a world where reputations don’t matter more than life and truth. A world where we take care of the way stories are told, and discuss sensitive issues with humanity for the sake of bettering our chances at not killing each other, regardless of how intoxicated, passionate, or enraged we might be. Maybe next time the show won’t be called “Death of an Artist”, and maybe we can call it something certain and reparative, like “An Artist Who Can Kill”. Maybe then, in that world, we’ll have more stories about artists who don’t and won’t kill, and more stories about artists who lived.
