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Speaker 1: Pushkin. This show contains adult language and occasional descriptions of violence.

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Speaker 1: Please keep that in mind when choosing when and where

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Speaker 1: to listen. It's May nineteen seventy three, Iowa City. There's

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Speaker 1: a damp chill in the air. We are on a

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Speaker 1: sort of shabby block in front of a brick apartment

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Speaker 1: building with a white door in need of a paint job,

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Speaker 1: and a storefront window with its blinds drawn shut. The

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Speaker 1: sidewalk just in front of the door is covered in blood,

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Speaker 1: and it looks like the blood might be seeping out

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Speaker 1: from under the door jam. It's a busy week day,

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Speaker 1: and as pedestrians pass the puddle of blood, they notice

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Speaker 1: it and casually step around it. Eventually, a man in

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Speaker 1: a green and black plaid jacket pauses and looks around

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Speaker 1: as if looking for an explanation. When none comes, he

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Speaker 1: walks away. Then a well dressed white woman uses her

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Speaker 1: umbrella to poke at the bloody puddle, but after a

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Speaker 1: moment or two of inspection, she also walks away. Finally,

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Speaker 1: an older gentleman emerges from a nearby store front and

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Speaker 1: silently cleans up the mess, and the evidence of whatever

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Speaker 1: happened is suddenly gone. And with it disappears any account

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Speaker 1: of whose blood was spilled and how. The whole scene

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Speaker 1: is being captured by two young women in their twenties, sisters,

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Speaker 1: who sit in an old car parked near by. One

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Speaker 1: of them holds a super eight camera, the kind you'd

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Speaker 1: make home movies with back them. The other snaps photos

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Speaker 1: with a thirty five millimeter camera. They are Anna and

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Speaker 1: Reclean Mendieta, Cuban refugees who landed in this unlikely place

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Speaker 1: as children in nineteen seventy three. Anna was a first

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Speaker 1: year MFA student at the University of Iowa. She was funny, loud, outrageous,

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Speaker 1: and had to take no prisoners vibe, and in the

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Speaker 1: way of sisters, she had roped Reclean into helping her

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Speaker 1: make a new piece, and like many works Anna made,

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Speaker 1: it would come to seem tragically prophetic in the wake

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Speaker 1: of her death. She basically staged what looked like the

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Speaker 1: remnants of, you know, physical violence with what looked like

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Speaker 1: blood in the doorway of a building, and I thought

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Speaker 1: it was extremely powerful for a very young artist to

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Speaker 1: be doing that, and to be doing it in a small,

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Speaker 1: largely white town of Iowa City was fascinating to me.

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Speaker 1: That's Connie Butler, one of the many curators who would

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Speaker 1: come to admire and study Ana Mendietta's work in the

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Speaker 1: decades that followed. The photos in film the Mendietta Sisters

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Speaker 1: took that day would ultimately become a work of art

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Speaker 1: called Moffett Building Piece. The fact that it still exists

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Speaker 1: only in these little thirty five millimeter slides, which you know,

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Speaker 1: you have to get very close to with a loop,

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Speaker 1: and it's a very intimate way of viewing these things.

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Speaker 1: You know, that implicates you as a viewer too, almost

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Speaker 1: as if you are yourself looking at a crime scene.

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Speaker 1: Anna's interest in blood wasn't only meant to shock. She

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Speaker 1: was keenly aware of violence and injustice. When she made

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Speaker 1: the Moffitt Building Piece, she was investigating her own community's

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Speaker 1: reaction to a brutal crime, a rape and murder that

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Speaker 1: had happened on campus a few months before. Here's how

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Speaker 1: she explained her inspiration. A young woman was killed, raped

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Speaker 1: and killed at Iowa in one of the dorms, and

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Speaker 1: it just really freaked me out. So I did sort

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Speaker 1: of rape performances type things at that time, using my

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Speaker 1: own body. I did something I believe in and that

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Speaker 1: I felt I had to do. That's not actually Anna

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Speaker 1: Mendietta's voice you're hearing. That was Tanya Brigera, another artist

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Speaker 1: from Cuba who you'll hear from more later. Anna Mendietta's

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Speaker 1: question was could you make art about something so awful?

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Speaker 1: And she used blood, not paint. Blood is the most

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Speaker 1: essential substance of life. Could it jolt people out of

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Speaker 1: their daily routines? Could blood make people pay attention? She

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Speaker 1: didn't know it yet, but the Moffett Building piece was

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Speaker 1: about to be her first major artwork, and in a

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Speaker 1: circular way, that's kind of terrifying. The question she asked

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Speaker 1: about how we react when we encounter the residue of violence.

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Speaker 1: This question would haunt all of us after she died.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Helen Molesworth and from Pushkin Industries, Something

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Speaker 1: Else and Sony Music Entertainment. This is Death of an Artist,

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Speaker 1: Episode one. The Haunting Boom. For my entire professional life,

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Speaker 1: I've been a member of something called the art world,

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Speaker 1: an exclusive network of artists, gallery dealers, curators, collectors, and

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Speaker 1: philanthropists for two decades. I was lucky enough to be

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Speaker 1: a museum curator, making me one of a small group

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Speaker 1: of cultural insiders who determine what art we see and

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Speaker 1: how we talk about it. In the museum world and

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Speaker 1: in art history, there are a lot of unspoken rules

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Speaker 1: about what you can say publicly and what is supposed

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Speaker 1: to stay private. It turns out I wasn't that good

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Speaker 1: at sticking to the script, and I guess I'm still

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Speaker 1: not good at it, because I'm going to tell you

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Speaker 1: Anna Mendietta's whole story, all the way to its shocking

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Speaker 1: and troubling end, and much to my surprise, I discovered

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Speaker 1: it's a story many of my colleagues in the art

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Speaker 1: world would prefer I didn't tell at first, blush. It

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Speaker 1: seemed like people didn't want me to talk about it

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Speaker 1: because of who else is part of that story. On

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Speaker 1: his husband, the famous sculptor Carl Andre. He is one

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Speaker 1: of the so called fathers of minimalism, a cultural hero

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Speaker 1: to many a revered artists with lots of connections, and

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Speaker 1: he was a suspect in Anna's death. Even though Carl

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Speaker 1: Andrea and Anna Mendietta were a highly visible art world couple,

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Speaker 1: even though something terrible happened between them the night she died.

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Speaker 1: You will not read about it on a museum wall label,

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Speaker 1: or in most art history textbooks reviews of their exhibitions

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Speaker 1: tend to take care of it. In a sentence or two,

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Speaker 1: you would not know that Mendietta's death divided the art

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Speaker 1: world in nineteen eighty five, and in many ways still does.

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Speaker 1: I'm not the first person to try and tell this story.

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Speaker 1: In fact, many of the voices you'll hear in this

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Speaker 1: show are from interviews conducted by investigative journalist Robert Katz.

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Speaker 1: He published a book in nineteen ninety that remains the

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Speaker 1: most comprehensive look into this art world tragedy. He spoke

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Speaker 1: with dozens of Anna and Carl's friends in noisy restaurants,

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Speaker 1: in parks, in busy offices, and you'll hear the voices

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Speaker 1: of some art world insiders on these tapes who have

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Speaker 1: since decided not to talk. Most folks don't want to

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Speaker 1: discuss what happened that night. They don't want to talk

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Speaker 1: about what the ramifications of that night were on the

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Speaker 1: art world. They don't want to contemplate what it means

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Speaker 1: when a community is torn apart by violence, and they

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Speaker 1: don't want to discuss whether or not justice has been served.

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Speaker 1: All these different folks not talking for all of their

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Speaker 1: different reasons means that a veil of silence started to

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Speaker 1: fall over this project. And I can't lie. The more

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Speaker 1: silence we encountered, the more sad and frustrated I became,

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Speaker 1: And the more silence we encountered, the more I wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk. Both Anna Mendietta and Carl Andre were incredible artists.

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Speaker 1: This could have been a story about a romance between

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Speaker 1: two fascinating people, but their story ends in a nine

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Speaker 1: one one call. Those who loved Anna Mendietta loved her fiercely.

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Speaker 1: Anna was extremely good company, super interesting, super funny, super lively.

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Speaker 1: She was always making plans, making schemes, getting you involved

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Speaker 1: in something. She decided that the only way to get

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Speaker 1: by in realme was to learn how to curse when

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Speaker 1: you drove, and she would like keep her window. She

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Speaker 1: told me, the left window down all the time so

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Speaker 1: she could put her arm out and flare the finger

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Speaker 1: and curse the people and they could hear her. Anna

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Speaker 1: was a contradictory. You know, she was a vegetarian, but

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Speaker 1: she loved to order stake tartar. She was funny, she

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Speaker 1: was engaging, She was very vital. She was a kind

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Speaker 1: of person you don't forget, like a lot of people

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Speaker 1: who are unforgettable. Even though everybody remembered her, not everyone

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Speaker 1: liked her. Her pensiant for pushing boundaries and not giving

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Speaker 1: the fuck what anyone else thought, both compelled and sometimes

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Speaker 1: irritated people. She was very magnetic. That's be Ruby Rich,

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Speaker 1: a prominent film scholar and a good friend of Anna's.

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Speaker 1: But she was also, as you may have heard, very

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Speaker 1: very argumentative, and so often people would end up in

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Speaker 1: a fight with her. But I found her very entertaining

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Speaker 1: even then. Anna's art school classmates remembered her early days

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Speaker 1: of art making is very experimental, sometimes a little gross,

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Speaker 1: sometimes kind of fun. Anna would sneak into the copy

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Speaker 1: center and xerox her breasts and her labia. She'd get

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Speaker 1: buckets of blood from the butcher and carry them into

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Speaker 1: the woods, where she'd strip down, hide parts of her

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Speaker 1: body under leaves, and then she'd have her friends blatter

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Speaker 1: blood around her and take photos. She got one of

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Speaker 1: her friends to trim his beard, and then she glued

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Speaker 1: the hair to her own face. In the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: art was starting to get radical, and Anna was at

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Speaker 1: the forefront. The world was changing. The women's movement the

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Speaker 1: anti war movement were in full effect, and those movements

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Speaker 1: inspired artists to engage more directly with current events and

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Speaker 1: the public. Many artists wanted their art to be outside

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Speaker 1: the confines of a museum or a gallery, so they

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Speaker 1: staged performances in public spaces and started using non art

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Speaker 1: materials borrowed from everyday life. Back then, Manhattan was the

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Speaker 1: undisputed center of the art world. It was where the

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Speaker 1: action was. Like most young, ambitious artists of the time,

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Speaker 1: after finishing her degree in Iowa, Anna made her way

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Speaker 1: to New York. There she found a vibrant downtown scene

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Speaker 1: dominated by radical artists challenging the status quo of art.

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Speaker 1: One of the most important players at the time was

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Speaker 1: the already famous sculptor Carl Andre. This question is that art?

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Speaker 1: That's always the American and felistine question. How can you

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Speaker 1: call that art? And it's easy to call things arts,

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Speaker 1: very easy, But the question is is it good or

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Speaker 1: bad or useless? And that question is not generally As

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Speaker 1: notorious for his genre busting work, Andre looked exactly how

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Speaker 1: an artist was supposed to look. He was a stocky

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Speaker 1: white man who sported a bohemian beard and more uniform

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Speaker 1: of workers overalls. He was a fixture in the boozy

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Speaker 1: Soho arts scene. He had a reputation for his intellect,

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Speaker 1: his drinking, and his sharply worded opinions, and he helped

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Speaker 1: to invent a movement, so much so that he is

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Speaker 1: typically referred to as a founding father of minimalism. Andre

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Speaker 1: played a central role in defining the visual vocabulary of

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Speaker 1: minimalism and essentially redefine the very nature of sculpture itself.

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Speaker 1: Minimalism completely dominated the art scene of the late nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. Loosely speaking, it's a type of sculpture

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Speaker 1: known for its rigorous abstraction and simplicity. Think cubes, rectangles,

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Speaker 1: basic geometric forms, all of which were made using industrial

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Speaker 1: materials like steel, plywood, and fluorescent tubes. The vibe was cool, intellectual,

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Speaker 1: and severe. These minimalist guys, and they were predominantly guys,

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Speaker 1: didn't think art was about emotions or pretty pictures. For them,

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Speaker 1: art was a philosophical arena, a place to challenge outmoded

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Speaker 1: ideas and develop new ones. Today we might call this disruption.

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Speaker 1: Back then, it was called the avant garde. Andrea's major

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Speaker 1: contribution was to remove sculpture from its pedicial and to

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Speaker 1: examine its relation to the floor. There would be no

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Speaker 1: more monuments, no heroic reaching for the sky, no guys

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Speaker 1: on horseback. Instead, Andrea would make sculpture as close to

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Speaker 1: the floor as he could, get, so close that you

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Speaker 1: could even walk on them. Similar to Mendietta's use of blood,

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Speaker 1: Andrea was playing with a huge taboo in the art world.

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Speaker 1: He broke the fundamental rule of don't touch, and in

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Speaker 1: doing so, paved the way for a new kind of art,

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Speaker 1: and like Mendietta, he inspired strong reactions. Not everyone was

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Speaker 1: a fan of either him or his work. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure where they are is in it? They just look

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Speaker 1: like tiles. I found him insufferable. He always dressed up

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Speaker 1: in his little worker's costume to show a badge of

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Speaker 1: being a working class artist, his overalls, which was faintly

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Speaker 1: ridiculous by then, as he lived in this luxury building

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Speaker 1: with a doorman. I had had little dealings with Andre,

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Speaker 1: except to be insulted by imperiodically. Yeah, the nicest personality

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Speaker 1: in the world. House. He's always extremely competitive with that

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Speaker 1: last voice is Carl LeWitt, wife of the equally famous

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Speaker 1: conceptual artist Saul LeWitt, who Carl was friends with for decades.

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Speaker 1: If you can't quite hear what she was saying, she

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Speaker 1: noted how competitive Carl could be with Saul. Controversy came

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Speaker 1: early to Carl Andre. He used everyday building materials such

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Speaker 1: as bricks and metal plates, which he typically just placed

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Speaker 1: on the floor. Because Andrea's work was not carved, bolted,

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Speaker 1: or welded, and was always just simply arranged or placed,

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Speaker 1: it inspired as much derision in the popular press as

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Speaker 1: it did admiration in the art world when London's most

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Speaker 1: important contemporary art museum bought a piece All Held Broke Loose.

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen seventies, the Tate acquired a piece by

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Speaker 1: Carl Andrea called Equivalent eight low lying piece on the

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Speaker 1: ground of fire bricks that are arranged in a grid.

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Speaker 1: That's art historian Julie Bryan Wilson, a professor who teaches

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Speaker 1: her UC Berkeley students about both Carl Andrea and an Amendetta.

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Speaker 1: It became a kind of press scandal how much the

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Speaker 1: sculpture was purchased for and how you know it was

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Speaker 1: one of these like my kid could do it kind

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Speaker 1: of arguments. When an interviewer asked Carl Andrea about it later,

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Speaker 1: he seemed amused by the controversy. Publicity is as good

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Speaker 1: as good publicity. It's not whether it's nice. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if they say it's nice and that's all, that's no good.

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Speaker 1: If they go on for hours and hours saying how

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Speaker 1: terrible it is, that's good. It's one thing to have

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Speaker 1: bravado about the bad press for your artwork. But this

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be Andrea's worst brush with the tabloids. But we'll

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Speaker 1: get to that later. For the moment, we're still squarely

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, a high flying time for avant

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Speaker 1: garde artists who made up a tight knit community that

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Speaker 1: revolved around a handful of bars, restaurants, and galleries. Most

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Speaker 1: artists were still relatively poor, taking day jobs to make

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Speaker 1: ends meet, making art in the after hours, and when

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Speaker 1: she first arrived in New York, Anna was one of

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Speaker 1: those artists. But a handful of artists became wildly successful

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Speaker 1: from the sale of their work, and Carl was one

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Speaker 1: of those artists. It was in this heady mixture of

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Speaker 1: ideas and art and Booze that Carl and Anna would

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Speaker 1: meet in a packed gallery in November nineteen seventy nine.

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Speaker 1: But this is no romcom. It's a tragedy, and it

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Speaker 1: involves two impressive, complex, flawed humans, two artistic powerhouses who

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Speaker 1: changed how we think about art. Anna and Carl's fateful

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00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:29,360
Speaker 1: meeting would entangle their lives and reputations forever. They would

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Speaker 1: become symbolic of so much more that was larger than

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Speaker 1: just them as people. They came to represent insider versus outsider,

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Speaker 1: male versus female, white versus Latin X, cool and intellectual

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Speaker 1: versus bodily and emotional In a way, it's almost too overdetermined.

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Speaker 1: But none of this symbolism changes the fact that Anna

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Speaker 1: was trying to elbow her way to a seat at

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Speaker 1: the table that had already been set for Carl. When

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Speaker 1: Anna arrived in New York, she quickly fell in with

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Speaker 1: a small coterie of other women artists trying to make

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Speaker 1: their way in an incredibly white and male dominated art world.

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Speaker 1: She joined a feminist gallery called Ai R, and after

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Speaker 1: about a year and a half in Manhattan, Anna was

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Speaker 1: ready for her first solo exhibition. She came out of

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Speaker 1: the gate strong with a compelling body of work she

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Speaker 1: called Silhouetta, the Spanish word for silhouette. The show was

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Speaker 1: made up of a suite of photographs hung plainly on

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Speaker 1: the wall, no fancy frames, nothing to distract from the image.

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Speaker 1: The Silhouetta series had occupied Anna for years. Some of

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Speaker 1: the photographs show her lying naked on the earth, covered

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Speaker 1: with leaves, flowers, or grass. Others depict the outline of

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Speaker 1: a human body pressed into the ground. Still others show

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Speaker 1: a mild indentation, a shallow space where a body once lay.

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Speaker 1: The press release for the show described her project as

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Speaker 1: quote an ongoing dialog between the artist in nature. The

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00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:10,840
Speaker 1: works were part performance art, part earth art. In order

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Speaker 1: to drama attendance on his friend and colleague, the artist

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Speaker 1: Nancy Spiro, organized a panel discussion and invited the famous

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Speaker 1: Carl Andre to speak. The title of the panel discussion

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Speaker 1: was I Kid You Not? How has the women's art

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Speaker 1: movement affected male art attitudes? Such was the state of

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Speaker 1: feminism in the New York art world circa nineteen seventy nine.

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Speaker 1: But the idea worked and the panel drew the crowd

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00:20:37,119 --> 00:20:41,520
Speaker 1: they were seeking. And then during the talk, something strange

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00:20:41,600 --> 00:20:45,639
Speaker 1: started to happen to honest photographs. Nancy Spiro told the

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Speaker 1: journalist Robert Katz about it, for pictures started popping off

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Speaker 1: the wall. What happened was I think that maybe the

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00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:58,879
Speaker 1: heat of all people in there must have been some

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00:20:59,080 --> 00:21:04,200
Speaker 1: warping or expand was very bizarre and sold during receiving rate,

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00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:09,439
Speaker 1: they popped off the love. That was terrible. She was

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Speaker 1: very upset about them. This old tape from the nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighties is hard to hear, but Nancy is saying that

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Speaker 1: honest photographs fell off the wall in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the event. After the panel discussion wrapped up, the almost

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00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:26,879
Speaker 1: always generous Carl took several people out to a Japanese

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Speaker 1: restaurant next door, and I think Carl then invited Anna.

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Speaker 1: He didn't even know who she was. This is very gracious.

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00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:41,520
Speaker 1: Nancy and Anna stayed behind to make sure Anna's photos

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Speaker 1: were back on the wall, and when they finally joined

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00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 1: the dinner, Carl paid Anna a lot of attention. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: his left wing politics led him to be interested in

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00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:55,240
Speaker 1: an exile from Cuba. Perhaps he could sense an affinity

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Speaker 1: between their art. Both were exploring the horizontal quality of

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Speaker 1: the floor, the ground, and the earth as a space

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Speaker 1: for sculpture. Perhaps it was just your typical heterosexual shenanigans,

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Speaker 1: as Anna was undeniably charismatic and attractive, and Carl had

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00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:16,840
Speaker 1: the shine of art world, fame and stardom. Anna's friend

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Speaker 1: Natalia Delgado thought it was a case of opposites attracting.

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Speaker 1: He had a call Mark's type of look, this long

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Speaker 1: hair and then a big, full beard wearing overalls, and

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Speaker 1: he was so tall and kind of heavy, and Anna,

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Speaker 1: she looked very slight compared to him, to look like

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Speaker 1: a bear. Here's how Anna's friend, Ella Troiano, a Cuban

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Speaker 1: American filmmaker, described her. Anna was small, thin, very pretty,

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Speaker 1: very vivacious. She was dark, what somebody would have called

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Speaker 1: exotic looking, and she had that kind of look that

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00:22:54,680 --> 00:23:00,200
Speaker 1: wasn't easily classifiable. And thus began a tangled, on again,

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00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:05,080
Speaker 1: off again relationship between an older, already legendary and twice

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Speaker 1: divorced man and the young, up and coming artist. But

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Speaker 1: Natalia felt they made sense together. There was an intellectual

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Speaker 1: attraction because of the interest in art, and that was

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Speaker 1: a big part of their relationship. I think that she

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Speaker 1: admired him because of his accomplishments as an artist, so

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Speaker 1: I think that was part of the attraction for her,

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Speaker 1: and he also gave her advice, and I think he

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Speaker 1: did exposure to artists that were you know, they would

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Speaker 1: go to Tuscany and go to have lunch with a

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Speaker 1: soula wit and they would get together at a party

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00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:44,360
Speaker 1: with Frank Stella. Frank Stella was another hugely successful contemporary

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Speaker 1: of Carl's. You know, it gave her an exposure to

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00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 1: people that were really Carl's friends and really stayed as

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00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:55,400
Speaker 1: Carl's friends, but that she probably would not admit initially

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Speaker 1: on her own. As is so often the case for women,

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00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:04,040
Speaker 1: Anna was frequently described as being ambitious in a way

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00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:08,480
Speaker 1: that was more accusation than accolade. Even some of her friends,

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00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:12,520
Speaker 1: like the conceptual artist Louise Camnetzer, made the subtle assumption

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00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: that she got together with Carl for his connections and

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00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: didn't forgive her for entering a marriage situation with somebody

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Speaker 1: that was, according to her, very problematic. And I saw

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00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: it as partially a career move, but she definitely was ambitious.

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Speaker 1: It wanted to make it that Carl might have been

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00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 1: equally attracted to her. Rising star energy did not seem

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00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 1: to enter the equation for anyone, whatever the nuance of

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00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 1: the attraction. They became an art world couple, taking their

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Speaker 1: place in a social circle filled with the big names

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Speaker 1: of the Soho art scene at the time. They socialized

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Speaker 1: with other couples whose names you might know from the

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Speaker 1: walls of Art Museum Saul and Carol LeWitt, Lawrence and

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Speaker 1: Alice Weener, Nancy Spiro and Leon golub By all accounts,

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00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 1: they were feisty, and as was the habit of the time,

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00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: the booze flowed freely at art world openings and dinners,

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Speaker 1: fueling the whole scene. Anna was known for mixing her

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00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:22,719
Speaker 1: wine with water, while Carl like champagne and good wine,

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00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 1: and after copious amounts of drinking, things could get uncomfortable.

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Speaker 1: So on one level we had good discussions, but then

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Speaker 1: as they proceeded to get um drunker or things, it

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00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: was just a kind of strange neuonic between them that

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00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: you would witness. They were very loud, yeah yeah, yeah,

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00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 1: Carl would be very cutting, and then she would be

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Speaker 1: more or less no retaliating the girl's way out to

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Speaker 1: the point where I didn't like to be with dam

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Speaker 1: you know, which is something that I don't didn't feel

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00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 1: about either of them. Girl can be really quite quite

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00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,439
Speaker 1: nice and wonderful, except when he drinks too much, he

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00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 1: becomes doctor Jacklin. He would be a difficult to be

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Speaker 1: a ring. Like I said, this isn't a rom com.

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00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: Darkness is creeping in. One of Anna's friends could feel

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Speaker 1: it coming. I didn't know what to do. How can

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00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: you tell someone someone's going to kill you? That story?

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00:26:46,680 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: After the break, Anna would always take me out to

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00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:07,679
Speaker 1: dinner for my birthday. That's Howard Dina Pindell an artist,

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00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,240
Speaker 1: a co founder of ai R, and a former curator

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00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:15,159
Speaker 1: at the Museum of Modern Art. In nineteen seventy nine,

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00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: she was in a terrible car accident that left her

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00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: with a head injury and memory issues, and it also

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00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: left her with a high degree of emotional sensitivity. What

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00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 1: I found was I was somewhat sensitive. I don't want

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00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: to say psychic, but I was sensitive from the injury.

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00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 1: We were at a restaurant which no longer exists, just

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00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: the three of us, no one else was there. They

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00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:42,400
Speaker 1: both drank a lot near the end of the meal,

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00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,880
Speaker 1: and it literally just flashed across my mind. Literally, he's

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00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: going to kill her with his hands, and I was stunned.

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00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: And I heard that or felt that thought or whatever.

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00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. How can you tell

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00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: someone someone's going to kill you? And why trust a voice,

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00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:08,679
Speaker 1: you know, or a thought? So I'm assuming that you

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00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 1: didn't tell Anna that. There's no way I would have

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00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 1: told her. I mean, you know you don't you know

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00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: you discount I mean, how can I prove it? Yeah?

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00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: So no, I just felt I couldn't say anything. I

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00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 1: kind of pushed it into the back of my mind.

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00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: Things have started to get a little woo woo. First

399
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,640
Speaker 1: the photos fall off the wall, and then there's Anna's

400
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 1: friend Howardina carrying around this awful, terrible vision that Anna's

401
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: life will end in violence. Perhaps Howardina was picking up

402
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: on the energy between Anna and Carl. After all, the

403
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: record shows they had plenty of tension, and one of

404
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: their perennial problems was how they compared professionally. One of

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00:28:55,840 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: Anna's closest friends, Natalia Delgado, remembers going to an exhibit

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00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: of one of the most famous art couples of all time,

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00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: Diego Rivera and Frieda Callo. I went to the show

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00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 1: with Anna and she showed me this painting. There's a

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00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: painting by Frieda Callo of Diego and herself, and Diego's big,

410
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: and Frieda's next to him, and she's quite small by comparison.

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00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: And he said to Anna, this is us, this is us.

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00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: We are Diegoon Frieda. The Calo painting from nineteen thirty

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00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: one is a classic. In it, Frieda paints Diego standing

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00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: ramrod straight, enormous as a redwood, his feet the scale

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00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: of hamhocks, planted solidly on the ground. His gaze, smug

416
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 1: and confident, engages the viewer directly, and in one hand

417
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:55,719
Speaker 1: he holds a painter's palette and several brushes. It's a

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00:29:55,760 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: consummate image of the great artist, the grand old mass Her. Frieda,

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00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 1: on the other hand, is birdlike. Her feet are so

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00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 1: tiny that she almost looks like a doll. Her right

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00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 1: hand gently touches Diego, while her left hand gathers her

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00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: shawl around her Torso, even though she is the artist

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00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: who painted this picture, she offers herself as wife, companion,

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00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: and accessory to his main event. What did Anna think

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00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 1: of that comparison? She thought he had a big ego,

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00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 1: that he was comparing himself to Dior, Riera. That's what

427
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 1: she said, what an ego? Do you think she felt

428
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: he was rivalrous or threatened? Yes, by her rise? Oh yes.

429
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: And I think that the whole description of he was

430
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: Diego and she was freed to Callo. In a way,

431
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: they looked very much, you know, he looked like Diego

432
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 1: is big and hefty and she was small and petite.

433
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: Was a way of kind of saying, look, I'm more

434
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: important than you. Diego was still more the more prominent artist.

435
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: And I do think that's how he how he Carl

436
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 1: wanted it to be. And I do think that was

437
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: an issue for them. And she would say and she'd say, well, Carl,

438
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 1: you know, my career is on the rise right now.

439
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: And I think that really really rubbed him the wrong way.

440
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: He found that very threatening. It was a prescient comparison.

441
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: In the nineteen eighties, Diego was the hero and Frieda

442
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: was still just a footnote in art history. Diego, like Carl,

443
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,479
Speaker 1: was known for his Marxist politics and his history of

444
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: thumbing his nose at capitalism. Carl had been active in

445
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: the anti war movement and adopted the posture that the

446
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: artist was similar to a day laborer. Diego was the

447
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 1: muralist who painted the workers rather than the factory owners.

448
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: Both Frieda and Anna in their lifetimes were the lesser

449
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: than partners to their male genius companions. What neither Frieda

450
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: nor Anna could have known was how the tides would

451
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: change and how they would each become the bigger star

452
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: in their own right. But again that's more rushing ahead.

453
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: It's late summer nineteen eighty five. Carl and Anna had

454
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: gotten married in January. They'd been spending most of their

455
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 1: time in Europe. Then we're just now back in New

456
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: York getting ready to set a house together. Anna was

457
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: going to give up her small apartment in Little Italy

458
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: and move into Carl's place. She asked her friend Marcia

459
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 1: Pelle's to help her with the move. She told me,

460
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: and we were going to move her stuff. We're gonna

461
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: go out and have a drink and dinner. So you

462
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: were going to move her books on Sunday to Car's aparbum.

463
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: But then she called the album Thursday night. She was

464
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 1: very upset and she said, I can't talk to you now.

465
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: The plans had changed, but I'm going to be moving

466
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: things from Karl's to my Carl. Anna had changed her plans.

467
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: Instead of moving more of her stuff into Karl's apartment,

468
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 1: she wanted to move everything out of Carl's apartment. They

469
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: had some kind of fight who are the last by her?

470
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: And she decided that she was been not moving and

471
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: move with samside. We've arrived at the threshold of our

472
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: terrible story. Sunday, September eighth, nineteen eighty five, a mere

473
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: nine months after their wedding. There's a lot we don't

474
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: know about that evening. Here are a few things we

475
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: know for certain. We know that Anna never moved her

476
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: things as she had planned to. We know that the

477
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: unhappy couple spent the evening at Carl's place, an apartment

478
00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 1: on the thirty fourth floor of a relatively new lug

479
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: Jury high rise in Greenwich Village. That night, like New

480
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: Yorkers everywhere, they ordered Chinese food and watched TV. Then,

481
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: sometime after five am, a passer by on the street

482
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: below heard a woman's scream, no, no, no. A moment later,

483
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: there was a sound like an explosion on the roof

484
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: of the deli below Carl's apartment. Anna had fallen from above.

485
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: Carl called nine five twenty nine am. We don't have

486
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: the tape of that call. After the verdict, the whole

487
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: trial record, including the call, was sealed, but a reporter

488
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: who heard it played at trial said Carl Andre's voice

489
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: was distressed that he wailed, and thus his explanation was

490
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 1: interrupted with cries and moans. You've asked voice actors to

491
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: read parts of the transcript of the nine one one call. Again,

492
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: my wife has committed suicide. Carl gives the address his

493
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: phone number and says they're on the thirty fourth floor.

494
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: The operator asks what happened exactly? Yeah, what happened was

495
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: we had a My wife is an artist and I'm

496
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: an artist, and we had a quarrel about the fact

497
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 1: that I was more exposed to the public than she

498
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,359
Speaker 1: wasn't She went to the bedroom and I went after her,

499
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: and she went out of the window. So she jumped

500
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: out of the window. How long ago did this happen? Well,

501
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I

502
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 1: don't know it was I don't I don't know. They

503
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: talked for several more seconds. Did it happen recently? Did

504
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: it happen just now? Oh, it happened just now. I mean,

505
00:35:56,600 --> 00:36:01,320
Speaker 1: I can't I can't tell you about way the building

506
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 1: and yeah, I don't know it's it. I can, I can,

507
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:22,240
Speaker 1: I can help. In September of nineteen eighty five, I

508
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: was a sophomore in college in Albany, New York. I

509
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: had already walked on top of one of carl Andre's sculptures.

510
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: They were installed in nearly every museum in the country.

511
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: I'd be lying if I didn't tell you how much

512
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: I love them. I was completely turned on by their

513
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 1: taboo breaking fuck you energy. The severity of his metal

514
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,240
Speaker 1: plates lying on the floor in a simple checkerboard pattern

515
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,280
Speaker 1: almost struck me as punk in my younger Brasher years.

516
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:56,440
Speaker 1: I didn't learn about Anna Mendietta until years after her death,

517
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 1: when I was well into graduate school, and even then

518
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: I learned about her from a fellow student, not through

519
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: any of my professors. I was trained by art historians

520
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 1: who believe the prime directive was to separate the life

521
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 1: of the artist from their work. This meant no one

522
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 1: ever said that Carl Andre was married to Anna Mendietta,

523
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: much less that he was accused of murdering her. Top

524
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: that off with the fact that Anna Mendietta was a

525
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 1: Cuban immigrant showing at a feminist gallery, working with blood,

526
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: making work that summoned the idea of the Earth goddess.

527
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:35,840
Speaker 1: Nothing could have been less cool in my philosophically inclined

528
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 1: education that privileged theory over feeling. But during the first

529
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 1: two decades of the twenty first century, the world changed

530
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: a lot and fast, and I think I did too.

531
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 1: You know, if I had a Sonny looked like Trebon

532
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: at this moment, and where we are right now is

533
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:59,399
Speaker 1: a resurgence from where the civil rights movement left off.

534
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:02,720
Speaker 1: President Trump is defending a temporary travel band for seven

535
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 1: Muslim majority countries as a monument of Thousands of women

536
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:10,320
Speaker 1: are using two words on social media to identify themselves

537
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 1: as survivors of sexual harassment and assault. Today it's hashtag

538
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: me too. I found myself thinking about Anna because she

539
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 1: did go on to become a free to call a

540
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: like figure, more powerful after her death than before, larger

541
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 1: than life. Revered. Scores of artists, mostly women, studied her,

542
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:39,280
Speaker 1: reenacted her performances, paid homage to her with their own work.

543
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: They make pilgrimages to the important sites of her life Havana,

544
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 1: Iowa City, Rome, Greenwich Village and over the years, I

545
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: came to love Anna Mendieta's art because it felt so urgent,

546
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 1: so relevant, because politics did start to feel personal and

547
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:02,959
Speaker 1: identity does matter. But could I love Mendieta's work well

548
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 1: also still being a fan of Carl Andres sculptures? Or

549
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:11,359
Speaker 1: did I have to choose sides? It felt like the

550
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: only way to answer that question was by asking another

551
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:21,319
Speaker 1: what really happened the night Anna died? I wondered what

552
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: we might be able to learn if we returned to

553
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: her story. When we first started making this podcast, I

554
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: assumed folks would want to talk about what happened between

555
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 1: Anna and Carl Man. Was I wrong? I don't want

556
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: to like badger you. You know what I mean? Right right?

557
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: May I ask you what you think the harm would

558
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 1: be a lot of my calls went like that. I

559
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 1: obviously wish we saw eye to eye on this one.

560
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I appreciate the time. Okay, bye.

561
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,640
Speaker 1: Silence was starting to feel like a main character in

562
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 1: this story. Perhaps some art world insiders just want to

563
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 1: protect their own professional relationships with Carl Andre or with

564
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,879
Speaker 1: the art dealers he's tight with. But it's not just

565
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:17,760
Speaker 1: those who are loyal to Carl who remain quiet. Many

566
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:21,399
Speaker 1: of Anna's friends also no longer want to talk. Quite

567
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: a few folks turned us down, citing reasons ranging from

568
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: busy schedules to not wanting to revisit the pain, to

569
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,879
Speaker 1: not wanting to discuss Carl and Anna's relationship. We also

570
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:34,919
Speaker 1: tried to talk to the estate of Annamandietta, even though

571
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,040
Speaker 1: it's well known that they don't participate in conversations that

572
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 1: include Carl Andre. They prefer the focus to be solely

573
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 1: on Annamandietta's artwork. The more I thought about all the

574
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 1: different reasons people have for not wanting to talk, the

575
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: more I felt that the silence wasn't only protecting Carl Andre.

576
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 1: There were so many other ideas at stake. I was

577
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:02,760
Speaker 1: in a community at odds with itself, unresolved about gendered

578
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 1: power dynamics, unsure of the boundaries between private and public,

579
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: and ultimately divided on whether it wanted institutional stability or

580
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: cultural change. As frustrating as it was to get turned

581
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:20,759
Speaker 1: away over and over, honestly, it kind of lit a

582
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:24,839
Speaker 1: fire in me. The more silence we encountered, the more

583
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: I felt like there was something important to say about

584
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:31,879
Speaker 1: that silence. I keep coming back to Anna Mendieta's work.

585
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: The Moffett Building piece was just one in a series

586
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: of pieces she made with blood where she invited people

587
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,240
Speaker 1: to look at the blood, to look at the violence.

588
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 1: Some people say Anna was morbid, that maybe she had

589
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:48,399
Speaker 1: a death wish, But that's not what I see when

590
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 1: I look at her work. The Moffatt Building piece, really

591
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 1: all of her work with blood, It's not about her,

592
00:41:56,400 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: It's about you. It's about us. Her work is asking

593
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 1: us to stop and pay attention. It's asking us to

594
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: bear witness, to look, to not walk by, to open

595
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: the door. And that's what we're going to do. Coming

596
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: up on death of an artist, the story of what

597
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:26,800
Speaker 1: happened after Carl's nine one one call. How could Carl,

598
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 1: who represented the purity of the desire, how could he

599
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: have done such an act like that? He had two

600
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:35,800
Speaker 1: different stories, and we confronted him on that. Carl's attorney

601
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 1: basically based his analysis of why she might have committed

602
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: suicide on Santia, on voodoo. There was a sense of

603
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:51,359
Speaker 1: someone this tough, this strong, this brilliant as Anna could

604
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 1: be killed, then any of us could be killed. Well,

605
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: sometimes people would scream at you on the street. It

606
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 1: was quite a confrontational things and why it's still anger

607
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:04,959
Speaker 1: so many artists today. I just started tweeting like there

608
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 1: will be blood. Death of an Artist is a co

609
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: production between Pushkin Industries, Something Else and Sony Music Entertainment.

610
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:32,359
Speaker 1: Written and hosted by me Helen Mouldsworth. Executive producers are

611
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: Lizzie Jacobs, Tom kinig Blee, Talmulaud, Jacob Weissberg and Lucas Werner.

612
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:42,440
Speaker 1: Produced by Maria Luisa Tucker, editing by Lizzie Jacobs. Our

613
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 1: managing producer is Jacob Smith. Associate producers are Poodrou and

614
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: Eloise Linton. Additional production helped by Tally Abacassas, Voice acting

615
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 1: by Nick Brain and David Glover. Anna Mendieta's quotes were

616
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:01,280
Speaker 1: read by Tanya Burgera, engineered by Sam Bear, fact checking

617
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 1: by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Our theme song is by Pooge Rue.

618
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: If you love this show, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus

619
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 1: to listen early, add free and get exclusive bonus content.

620
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 1: Look for the Pushkin Plus channel on Apple Podcasts or

621
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: at pushkin dot Fm. Find more great podcasts from Sony

622
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:34,280
Speaker 1: Music Entertainment. At sonymusic dot com. Backslash podcasts,