Blood, bombs and Americana

4/1/2026

Twenty years have passed since Des Moines Art Center hosted its tribute to Ana Mendietta. She was a Cuban refugee who escaped Castro’s reign of terror, was raised in Sioux City and first rose to fame in Iowa City where her 1973 performance piece “Rape Scene” was first performed. 

Photos of “Rape Scene,” in all their bloody, nude brutality, documented a subsequent show in which Ana reenacted the rape and murder of a fellow student at the University of Iowa, where she was studying. That work became a real moment in the feminist agenda — a statement on the issues of violence and defenselessness. 

Mendieta envisioned her work as a situation that confronted viewers with traumatic events, obliging them to address their emotions and to take a stand. Mendietta was herself “murdered” by her husband in 1985. He was acquitted despite overwhelming evidence against him. She became a martyr for victimhood. 

Mendietta is back in the news this month as the main inspiration to Puppies, Puppies, who was born Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo. That trans artist made the cover of Art News this March in a sensational nude cover photo. The story mentions Mendietta as a pioneer. Puppies is now reenacting Mendietta’s “Rape Scene” in performances that come with a warning that they are not accessible to those under 18. The reenactments last three bloody hours ending with the draping of Puppies’ naked body in a transgender flag.  

Also last month, anonymous guerilla artists placed a 12-foot-tall statue reenacting Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet’s legendary “King of the World” pose from “Titanic.” It superimposed Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in its Washington, D.C., debut.

The local scene played out less bloody and sarcastic. Chris Vance’s annual show was his best ever, in our opinion, and his gallery’s (Moberg), too. Vance included pottery for the first time. Those are made with the same zany characters as his paintings, making them the perfect complement “for collectors who have already filled their walls with Vance paintings,” in TJ Moberg’s words.

Touts

• Des Moines Art Center continues its deep dive into Caribbean art with “Christine Rebet: Sound of Time,” April 11 to Aug. 23. That film-performance reflects on an 18th century slave rebellion in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains which culminated in the founding of the colonies of Maroons. It was led by legendary Queen Nanny. On April 11, Rebet talks with Simone Harris, one of Queen Nanny’s descendants, who reenacts the history of the legend in performance.

• Des Moines Symphony follows up a sensational March concert that featured the Des Moines debut of violin virtuoso Stella Chen with an all American tribute to famous works by Copland and Gershwin plus little known works of Steve Heitzig and Margaret Bonds. Heitzig writes music for sculptors, all featured in Des Moines’ sculpture park. Bonds wrote her piece as a tribute to the four Sunday School students killed in the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church firebombing in Montgomery, Alabama, by the Ku Klux Klan.

• Olson-Larsen Gallery debuts “Inked” on spring Gallery Night in Valley Junction, April 17. 

• Fred Hersch has shaped jazz with more than 60 albums. His trio will play the venerable Sheslow Auditorium on April 17.

Road trip

The exhibition “Containing Multitudes” at the Minneapolis Institute of Art is garnering rave reviews internationally. The exhibition, inspired by Walt Whitman’s “I am large, I contain multitudes,” highlights 95 photographic works “exploring the diversity, beauty, and contradictions of the American experience.” Robert Frank, Walker Evans, and Ansel Adams star alongside contemporary artists Dawoud Bey, Catherine Opie, and Carrie Mae Weems. The show plays through Aug. 17. ♦

Jim Duncan is a food and art writer who has been covering the central Iowa scene for more than five decades.