Suzanne Lacy, and Arlene Raven postcard text writer (Europe, Latin America, Mexico, Southwest United States and San Francisco, 1977-78)

This performance is represented only through visual images taken by artist's colleagues as Lacy explored the great monuments of Europe and Latin America while painting, in consecutive locales, a Mona Lisa paint-by-number painting. The photographs are reproduced as a travelogue fold-out postcard, with text by Arlene Raven. Raven’s ironic commentary raises questions about the role of performance art to visual art, and the categorization of great works of art done by men: “Musing at her train window, as unfamiliar landscapes and major monuments of art rush by, Mona also contemplates her own image. She is a universal hallmark of Woman—mysterious, self-enclosed, silent. She is the European artistic tradition at its highest level of aspiration …A performance artist speaks but does not generally paint canvases. In this journey, a performance about tourism, imitation, art, artists, art objects, women and culture, she seeks the promises of art long ago whispered to Mona (is that why she’s smiling?)—visibility, acknowledgement, fortune, even immortality. Under these circumstances, it is best to have a Famous Painting by a Great Artist along.”

The work culminated in Mona By Number, an installation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Lacy sat inside a glass-enclosed booth like the Mona Lisa repository at the Louvre, painting the Mona Lisa paint by number daily for two weeks.