Old Mistresses (Queridas viejas) - Editing Gombrich

With the help of a kitchen knife, Gimeno cuts into Gombrich's iconic The Story of Art, to make room for women artists, extending the book’s original content to create a gender uncensored history of art.

The Story of Art’s has incalculable influence as the standard textbook for the discipline following its publication in 1950. It has been a best seller ever since, despite only ever including just one female artist. It (re)presents the established canon and perpetuates the idea of the solitary male artist as genius. It’s a book Gimeno fell in love with whilst studying at university, unaware how blinded she was by patriarchy, not registering the absence of women.

The performance is a chronological tour of the last 1,000 years of Western Art History. Gimeno makes the first cut in chapter 8, the 10th c. to introduce the page of the first known female painter of Europe and continues to add pages up to the 20th Century, including 89 women artists.

www.mariagimeno.com

Join performer Maria Gimeno for an internationally acclaimed art performance that honours the memory of women artists, giving them voice by officially placing them back in the most famous of all history of art textbooks, into a story which they have been systematically excluded from.

This event is organised by UCL SELCS SPLAS (Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies)