From Hic Mulier to the virago queer. Female masculinity in contemporary spanish art

Abstract

This article aims to examine the nature that has defined female masculinity, as well as the various morphologies it has manifested in contemporary Spanish art. The analysis emphasizes the performative, unstable, and mutable character of identity construction, in dialogue with the postmodern deconstructivist theories developed by Butler, Halberstam, Kosofsky Sedgwick, Preciado, Haraway, and Braidotti, among others. Within this framework, different artistic proposals are examined that move between the conception of gender inscribed in habit, its manifestation in the realm of actions, and its projection into the prosthetic universe. These strategies not only dismantle normative categories of gender but also simultaneously render visible its own dimensions as practices of substitution. In all of them, recurring resources such as hyperbole, parody, and simulacra are recognized tools that articulate dissident methodologies against the monolithic, rationalist, heteropatriarchal ontological construct. We refer to works that move from the plastic to the corporeal, contributing to the visibility and illustration of realities, while simultaneously shaping and weaving new presents.