María Teresa Hincapié. ‘Vitrina’

Within the context of the Bogotá Latin American Popular Theatre Gathering of 1989, María Teresa Hincapié acted in the window of a shop located on the intersection between Avenida Jiménez and Carrera 4. Dressed in a blue gown, she played the role of a housekeeper and, for eight hours straight over the course of three days, she provided a portrait of what it meant to be a late-20^th century woman, sweeping, doing the washing up, coming her hair and doing her makeup, before the flabbergasted gazes of passers-by. Wandering inside the shop, she used the glass on the shop window as a medium to write sentences in red lipstick, washing them off with soap, or covering it in newspaper, only to tear small holes into the paper through which she showed her eyes and mouth.

Separated by the glass, the audience could read the questions the artist put forward about the world of drama, such as ‘Do you believe this is theatre?’ or statements such as: ‘I am a flying woman,’ ‘I am a blue woman,’ as well as actions such as drawing female silhouettes – one of which was a self-portrait – that spoke of the intention of creating a new feminine subject, questioning that which is generic and highlighting her contradictions with actions deemed to be banal, poor or limited, almost rituals in routine. Somehow, her physical image as a woman became an artistic image that spoke of a new foundational myth which transcended the categories of gender.