Maris Bustamante
Instrumento de trabajo / Para quitarle a Freud lo macho (part of the performance Caliente–Caliente)
Since her first happening in 1971 Maris Bustamante (*1949, Mexico) — a graduate from the Escuela Nacional de Pintura y Escultura La Esmeralda at Mexico City—began “a search for non-traditional supports” or what she called “non-objective art.” In 1977, with three male artists, she started a movement of “savage vanguard” called “No-Grupo” (No-Group). As they declared, “No-Group is a workshop of critique, of attitudes and positions.” With No-Grupo Bustamante created humored and caustic performances where gender was a major source material. In 1983, Bustamante and Mónica Mayer founded the first feminist art collective in Mexico, Polvo de Gallina Negra (Black Hen Powder).
For Instrumento de trabajo / Para quitarle a Freud lo macho (Work Instrument / To Get Rid of the Macho in Freud) from the performance Caliente-Caliente (Hot-Hot), Bustamante manufactured 300 masks made in her own image, replaced the nose of the mask with a penis, added a sign to it stating “work instrument” and distributed the masks to the audience as a response “to Sigmund Freud’s theory that a woman who wanted to engage in professional endeavours suffered from penis envy” (Bustamente).
Performance: Museo de Arte Moderno en la Ciudad de México
Courtesy Maris Bustamante