Vitrina, 1989
As part of the Latin American Popular Theatre Meeting in Bogotá in 1989, María Teresa Hincapié occupied the window of the Librería Lerner bookshop, on the busy Avenida Jiménez. Dressed in blue overalls, she played the role of someone intent on domestic chores and, for eight consecutive hours on three days, painted a portrait of what it meant to be a woman in the late twentieth century, performing tasks such as sweeping, cleaning, doing her hair and putting on make-up before the astonished eyes of passers-by. As she walked about inside the space, she used the glass window as a screen on which she wrote phrases in red lipstick –some of them prompted spontaneously by the relationship she struck up with spectators− that she would then wipe off using soap, or cover with sheets of newspaper, in which she would make holes through which her eyes and mouth showed.
The public on the other side of the glass was able to read the questions the artist raised concerning the world of dramaturgy, such as: ‘Do you think this is theatre?’, or statements like: ‘I am a woman who flies’ and: ‘I am a blue woman’. The audience also watched her perform actions such as drawing female silhouettes –including a self-portrait– that indicated her intention to create a new female subject by questioning the conventional view and pointing out its contradictions, engaging in tasks considered trivial, menial and limited, almost rituals in modern life. In some way, her physical image as a woman became instead an artistic image that spoke of a new foundational myth and went beyond the categories of gender.
Technical details
- Original title:
- Vitrina
- Registration number:
- 5955
- Artist:
- Hincapié, María Teresa
- Date created:
- 1989
- Date acquired:
- 2022
- Fonds:
- MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
- Object type:
- Audiovisual recording
- Media:
- Single-channel video, colour, silent, 28 min 35 s
- Edition number:
- P.A. 2 d'edició de 6 + 2 P.A.
- Credits:
- Colección MACBA. Fundación MACBA.--
- Copyright:
- © Santiago Zuluaga
- It has accessibility resources:
- No
The MACBA Collection features Catalan, Spanish and international art and, although it includes works from the 1920s onwards, its primary focus is on the period between the 1960s and the present.
For more information on the work or the artist, please consult MACBA's Library. To request a loan of the work, please write to colleccio [at] macba.cat.
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