Reflections on a Feminist Model for the Field of Art: Montehermoso, 2008–2011

The lunch lecture introduces the conceptual underpinning of the project of production, exhibition, and diffusion of contemporary art and thought that was carried out at the Cultural Center Montehermoso Kulturunea in the Spanish Basque city of Vitoria-Gasteiz during the four years from 2008 to 2011. For the first time in Spain, women were incorporated into all the project’s programs and activities equal to men. The project considered feminist thought as a crucial source of knowledge for understanding contemporary artistic practices and the societies that produce them. In fact, Montehermoso was the result of taking up the principal critical contributions made by feminism in the field of contemporary art since women had become massively and continuously involved in art practice and theory in the third wave of feminism, just fifty years ago.

CV: Xabier Arakistain is a feminist and art curator based in Bilbao. In his work he incorporated the category of sex as a curatorial criterion and pioneered the development of the implementation of gender equality policies in the fields of art, contemporary thought and culture. From 2007–2011 he was the director of the Centro Cultural Montehermoso Kulturunea in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. He currently co-directs the interdisciplinary, international, and intergenerational course Feminist Perspectives in Art Production and Theories of Art at the Azkuna Zentroa in Bilbao, which he initiated in 2008.