Maris Bustamante facts for kids

Maris Bustamante (born November 10, 1949) is a Mexican artist. She works in many different ways, like performance art, sculpture, and even theater. She has shown her art in 21 solo shows and over 400 group shows. These shows have been in Mexico and other countries.

Maris Bustamante has created and performed more than 250 art pieces. These include performances, art installations, and special art environments. She even showed her performance art on television! She called these "social performances" because they reached many people who weren't usually art fans. She also designs sets, costumes, and props for plays, TV shows, and movies.

For over 30 years, Maris Bustamante has been a respected teacher. She is a professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de la Unidad Azcapotzalco. Since the 1990s, she has also been a researcher and writer. She writes about conceptual art, performance art, and how people can join in art. Her writings are in important books and art show catalogs.

Maris Bustamante's Education

Maris Bustamante studied art at a famous school in Mexico. It was called Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda". She went there from 1968 to 1973. It was one of the best art schools in Mexico.

Her Art and Performances

In the 1970s, Maris Bustamante started making conceptual art. This type of art focuses on ideas and messages, not just pretty pictures. She was part of a movement in Mexico City called "Los Grupos" (The Groups). Artists in this movement worked together.

She joined a group called "NO GRUPO" when it started in 1979. She worked with them for six years. Maris Bustamante has been exploring new ways to tell stories through art since 1971. That's when she created her first "happening," which is a type of art event.

From 1977 to 1983, No Grupo put on several performances each year. In 1979, Bustamante led a very funny and clever piece. It was called Patente del Taco (The Taco Patent). For this art piece, she actually applied for and received a patent for the taco. The taco is a traditional Mexican food.

She took many pictures of the taco and the patent. In some photos, the taco stood upright and had funny sayings on it. One saying was "Dare to do something fun, eat a taco!" These pictures were made very large, like cartoons. This was to show how some ideas in Mexican culture were exaggerated.

In 1983, Maris Bustamante and Mónica Mayer started something new. They created the first feminist art group in Mexico. They called it Polvo de Gallina Negra (Black Hen Powder). Bustamante and Mayer used humor to talk about serious social issues. Their group's name itself was a joke: "Black Hen Powder – to protect us from the magic that makes women disappear!"

For one performance, called ¡MADRES! (MOTHERS!) in 1984, Bustamante and Mayer both became pregnant at the same time. They wanted to experience and show what pregnancy was like in Mexico. Part of this performance was a TV show on Canal 2 in Mexico. It was called "Mother for a Day." On the show, Bustamante and Mayer "made pregnant" famous men, like TV host Guillermo Ochoa. A main topic on the show was home life. They talked about all the hard work that goes into being a mother.

See also

In Spanish: Maris Bustamante para niños