Chronicle of a Beautiful Paintress is a score by Nam June Paik dedicated to Alison Knowles. The score consists of instructions asking the artist to stain national flags of the world every month with her menstrual blood and exhibit them in a gallery. Upon Paik’s request, Knowles fulfilled the score by staining the flags of all nations with her menstrual blood and exhibited them at Paik’s first solo exhibition, Exposition of Music — Electronic Television in 1963. Paik wanted his scores, which implied sexual gestures, to be performed by professional performers, instead of any woman. Paik asked his fellow Fluxus composer Mieko Shiomi, but she refused. Knowles did not perfectly meet the conditions Paik aspired to for the performers of his piece as she didn’t have a degree in music. As Knowles recalls, Paik had a strong will to push his ideas about women at that time.
