Nadia Anjuman, the Afghani poetess who was becoming quite famous for her brave outspokenness and beautifully touching words, was murdered by her husband in 2007. He had constantly complained about the fact that she was known and he was not. Before murdering her he had frequently stated that it was not proper in Afghanistan for a wife to be more esteemed than her husband, so it is understandable that, considering the cultural ramifications, the obvious solution to this indignity was to kill her.

A strange incident came back to my mind from observing the interview.

The year was 1985 and my wife at the time told me that she had heard a strange noise in the next room, that it sounded like someone might have broken into the loft we lived in and would I check and see? I did and she was right, an intruder was standing in the middle of the room. "May I ask what you are doing here?" "Isn't this an art gallery?" he responded in a relatively polite tone. "No, it isn't. How on earth did you get in here? You would have to go through three locked doors!" I don't remember his reply but he maintained his well-mannered tone so in an equally polite tone I asked him to take a seat on the futon sofa that he was standing in front of. He hesitated for a moment but acquiesced to my politely insistent gesture as I gently but firmly pointed to the sofa.

I had all the while been talking to my assistant, Judith Odell, on my wireless phone so he realized that another person was also aware of his intrusion. "I'm sure that it's an innocent mistake but if you don't mind sir, I'd like the police to interview you just to be certain. Is that all right?" He said that it was. "Judith would you please call 911 and send the police to interview what is probably just a mistake?" After I chatted with the fellow a bit more my suspicions became heightened and I myself dialed 911 as well. At that point the young intruder started to get up but I said no, no, I'm sure that it's all right but please sit back down, they will be here momentarily. And this he did.

When the police arrived they found he had a very sharp mat cutter and some file keys in his pocket that the fellow had taken from a hook on my wall and told me that I was lucky that he hadn't slit my throat. Off they went and I heard no further about it until I received a phone call from a lady who said that she was an assistant District Attorney and that my intruder had seemed so harmless that they were about to let him go until they discovered that he was wanted for an earlier burglary charge as well and would I be so good as to come down to the Grand Jury that was considering whether to prosecute the case and describe the details of the intrusion?

As I arrived at her office and she realized that I was a part of the New York art world, she expressed her frustration about a second case that she had been appointed to pursue. A famous sculptor had obviously murdered his wife by throwing her out of the window of their thirty-fourth floor apartment, the concierge had actually heard the victim scream, "No, no, stop! Don't!" just before she hit the pavement but the entire New York art world had shut up like a clam and no one would allow himself to be interviewed as to the character of the culprit. She further mentioned that she had heard rumors that the husband had an extremely bad temper and had even beaten up his ex-girlfriend who, as well as having been his girlfriend, had also been his art dealer. But the dealer, Paula Cooper, had, as had all the others, refused to be interviewed. I myself had never met Carl Andre, the husband so I also was of no help. Nevertheless, she was determined to pursue the case so eventually it went to trial but the husband was judged to be innocent of the crime.

My landlord was a friendly Sicilian guy and introduced me to a number of his interesting friends telling them that they would enjoy hearing some of the strange stories about art that I had to tell. One day while I was having lunch with one of his friends in the lovely outdoor backyard patio of Barolo restaurant just down the street from my gallery, I decided to tell him the outline of the crime story that I have so far related.

The friend smiled knowingly, gently patted me on the head and explained that all his underworld friends knew the reason for the acquittal, that it was common knowledge that the judge had been bribed. "It's the only murder case," he said, "in the history of New York where the defendant didn't ask for a jury trial! And why was that? Because the murderer's wealthy friend, another artist named Frank Stella, had financed the $75,000 bribe that had been paid to the judge." He went on, "A jury might have come up with a different result. The judge was a clever one and on a technicality he didn't even allow the concierge that you mentioned to testify, let alone any other damning evidence to come in."

Today I Googled the name of the murdered wife and this is what I found.

From SISTER RYE March 27, 2007:

"Role Play: Feminist Art Revisited 1960 - 1980"

Ana Mendieta, the late wife of Carl Andre, was raised in the U.S. foster care system, after being exiled from Cuba. She later either fell, or was pushed from an apartment window to her death. Like Hannah Wilke, Ana used her body as her primary medium of expression in performances, super 8 films, videos, drawings, sculptures, and installations. Also, like Hannah, there has been a marked emphasis on her large body of work, and her early mythic fall.

Written by Lisa Alvarado
Published May 05, 2007:

As chronicled in Jane Blocker's Where Is Ana Mendieta? : Identity, Performativity, and Exile, Ana Mendieta was a Cuban performance artist who lived in New York in the 1970s. The title not only refers to the suspicious circumstances of her death, but to the nonexistent presence of the work of women artists in mainstream exhibitions, to the absence of work that portrays the aesthetic rooted in Latino cultural identity.

Mendieta boldly explored women's identity, sexuality, and spirituality in pieces that were deceptively simple. Her work was constructed from the elements themselves - dirt, water, and light in their most basic forms; her themes revolved around the ideas of burial, rebirth, submersion in the natural world. From a perspective beyond the dominant culture's construct of nation, a construct of governments, the hegemony of conquerors, Mendieta's work reverberates with an older, indigenous idea of nation. It challenges the viewer to envision an idea of nation and identity based on a direct relation to the Earth itself.

In a series entitled Tree of Life, Mendieta flattened herself against a large oak tree. She is naked, covered with gesso and paint to simulate tree bark. Where does the tree stop and Medieta begin? Where do we stop and our connection with nature begin? The work was simply done and deeply resonant. I immediately saw a connection between this piece and a Mexican/Chicano idea of rootedness to place that is not hemmed by borders, but by history and ancestral links to land, to nature itself.

© 2008 ___M.M.E.