False Identity, an (in)visibility Strategy for Women Performance Pioneers (Mexico/Spain, 1926-36)

Abstract

This work considers the double paradoxical character of visibility and invisibility, as well as true and false identities, that many women in early twentieth century Spain and Mexico, resorted to in order to simultaneously hide their own and represent others. Thus, false gender and other identities revealed a contradictory social reality. As a research question, we will explore their actions as possible precursory expressions of performance, an artistic practice that would appear many years later. We find a connection to these women’s performing in the creative use they made of their own bodies (without doing so intentionally). They carried out a kind of covert participant observation, in anthropological terms, that allowed them to pass unnoticed at the same time as making visible diverse social and gender problems and identities. The women whose cases will be analyzed are the Mexican Concepción Jurado who, between 1926-1931, passed herself off as a Spanish millionaire; and Spanish journalists Magda Donato, Josefina Carabias and Luisa Carnés, who between 1932 and 1936, using false identities, infiltrated mental health institutions, prisons, hotels, hairdressers and even took on the role of women seeking jobs. This allowed them to bring to light the invisibility of the areas they infiltrated, denounce their social and labor conditions and point out the constructions of gender inequalities surrounding them. there is certainly art in their actions, why not?

Keywords

• performatividad
• creatividad
• conchita jurado
• magda donato
• luisa carnés
• josefina carabias