Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Performing Revolution: Women's Artistic Agency and Democratization in Portugal (1974–79)

2022; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 38; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/port.2022.0003

2222-4270

Leonor de Oliveira,

Historical and Political Studies

Performing Revolution:Women's Artistic Agency and Democratization in Portugal (1974–79) Leonor de Oliveira Abstract The 25 April 1974 Revolution in Portugal overthrew the longest dictatorship in Western Europe and allowed new socio-political actors to intervene publicly. Performance art became instrumental in redefining the presence of women in the public and political space. This article confronts ideological and legislative definitions of woman with the creative interventions of women artists in the years following the revolution. In the historiography of the period, gender discrimination and violence, and women's rights have been dissociated from artistic intervention. By historically contextualizing women's performative actions, this article highlights their contribution for sociopolitical debate, configuration of democratic aspirations, and for reviewing the impact of revolutions in a wider social, cultural and political perspective. Resumo A Revolução do 25 de abril de 1974 em Portugal derrubou a mais longa ditadura na Europa Ocidental e permitiu que novos atores sociopolíticos se manifestassem publicamente. A arte da performance tornou-se então num meio para a redefinição da presença das mulheres no espaço público e político. Este artigo confronta definições ideológicas e legislativas da mulher com as intervenções criativas das artistas nos anos que se seguiram à revolução. Na historiografia deste período, as questões da discriminação e violência de género e os direitos das mulheres encontram-se dissociados da intervenção artística. Ao contextualizar historicamente as ações performativas levadas a cabo pelas artistas, este artigo pretende indicar o seu contributo para o debate sociopolítico, para a configuração de aspirações democráticas e para a revisão do impacto das revoluções numa perspetiva social, cultural e política mais ampla. Keywords Portuguese Revolution, women's rights, democracy, performance, art, women's creativity Palavras-chave Revolução portuguesa, direitos das mulheres, democracia, arte da performance, criatividade feminina Introduction The fall of the decades-long dictatorship in Portugal, on 25 April 1974, opened new avenues through which women artists' creativity could expand and produce a meaningful impact on society.1 In this article, I pay special attention to performance art, whose dissemination in the Portuguese artistic milieu occurred precisely in the revolutionary period, when the democratization of the country was in progress. Performance art created a new space for women to express themselves creatively and to intervene in the new social and political landscape. I therefore argue that performative practices reconfigured women's action in society and challenged the legacies of the patriarchal and pious culture of the dictatorship, on the one hand, and the canonical, male-centred, discourse of art history, on the other. Another relevant aspect of the connection between performance and revolution in Portugal was the presence in the country of many international women performance artists. They came mainly from France, but also from the United Kingdom, Brazil and Turkey, and presented themselves individually or participated in collectives in different artistic events organized in Portugal. The Encontros Internacionais de Arte [International Art Meetings], for instance, organized between 1975 and 1977, show how the intensification of the practice of performance in Portugal happened within an international dialogue. Portugal became, therefore, a territory for a transnational and collective approach to the persistent threat of gender violence and discrimination. The performative interventions of women artists in Portugal defied ideological and legislative definitions of the woman not only by the dictatorship, but also by the new democratic regime. However, the recovery of those interventions and [End Page 62] the political and cultural criticism they conveyed has been undermined by the lack of primary sources and by a historiographic tradition that has distanced artistic practice from civic agency. In order to counter dominant narratives and memory gaps, in the last part of this article I will contextualize the work of two artists, Helena Almeida (1934–2018) and Ana Hatherly (1929–2015) in the context of the post-revolution period. Almeida and Hatherly inscribed in the imagery of that period the disruptive agency of women, thus giving visibility through performative practice to neglected actors in history. They also identified democracy with a continuing process that needed...