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9:03 p.m.

Till the end of the 19th Century, artworks were built through an imitation narrative: the artist created in deep likeness to Nature. To achieve this, a long process of learning was required to turn a painting into a visual window to the world.

The same can be said of the observer of that time: he was trained in the habit of recognizing the visual similarities with the world that surrounded him.

Looking at, for example, "Two women at a window", by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spain, 1617 -1682), demands from us no special knowledge to understand it. Two young women observe us from inside a window. One of them, with her bare shoulders, is rather sensual. The other one covers her mouth with her cape, as if smiling was not allowed. The interpretation is simple. However, the way they are depicted belongs to the masculine look of the 17th century. Murillo portrays, in the older woman, the image of decorum, and in the younger one, the innocence of youth.

Two Women at a Window, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (ca. 1655–60)

Technique: oil on canvas / Measures: 125.1 × 104.5 cm

But imitation has come to an end. Or to say it properly, the narration that dictated the functioning of an artwork. This change led us, observers, to establish a different type of relationship with the pieces on display. Today's artworks are self-referential, even if there's a certain imitation. Art has become a process of investigation on the life of the artist and what surrounds him/her. This requires a new kind of viewer, someone that does not seek the similarities between the representation and reality, but that accepts to play a new type of game. As a consequence we feel a bit unease. Imitation has not, however, disappeared as a recognition technique, but what we see is something else. For example, the video-instalation "Mutumia" that Kenyan artist Phoebe Boswell presented last year in Venice is, in a way mimetic but it stimulates us in a different way that Murillo's painting. We must first read the signs to understand the artwork, and when we do so, we feel overwhelmed. The woman depicted does not stand out for her beauty, but for her fight for her rights.

In the artwork of the 17th Century, the skill of the artist is what calls our attention. In Boswell's installation it's the true representation of what women suffer in Africa what makes us reflect beyond the artwork.