ahtr feminism & art

Feminism & Art1960s – the present

Feminist Art: 1960s – the present

but also

The Feminist Critique of Art: The beginning of human history –

1960s

Prehistoric Wall Painting (Line Drawing)

The intersection of Feminism and Art produces many interesting effects, disrupting the story of Modernist Art and its smooth transitions from one “important” style to the next.

Feminist Art can be a way of categorizing art made by (mostly) women that consciously links its strategies and goals to those of the Women’s Rights Movement of the late 1960s and 70s, and to feminist ideas and politics ever since.

Feminist challenges to the art world and its institutional bias also made space for women (and other artists interested in working against the grain) to make and show art of all kinds, whether feminist or not, in ways that they hadn’t been able to before.

Perhaps most importantly, Feminism continually serves as a critical lens for considering all cultural production, including conceptual categories like Art, Women, and Importance, in relation to gender and power.

Jackson Pollock at work in his studio, 1950. Photograph by Hans Namuth.(source)

Carolee Schneeman, Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions, 1963,Paint, glue, fur, feathers, garden snakes, glass, and plastic with the studio installation "Big Boards.” Photograph by Erró. (source)

Carolee Schneeman, Interior Scroll, 1977, Performance. (source)

“…He said we are fond of youYou are charmingBut don't ask us to lookAt your filmsWe cannot look at:the personal clutterthe persistence of feelingthe hand-touch sensibilitythe diaristic indulgencethe painterly messthe dense gestalt…he said we can be friends equally though we are not artistsequally I said we cannot be friends equally and we cannot be artists equally…He told me he lived with A ‘sculptress’ I asked doesThat make me a ‘film-makeress’

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘We think of youAs a dancer.’ ”

- Excerpt from Interior Scroll

Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1964, Performance. (source)

Vito Acconci, Following Piece, 1969, Performance. (source).

Adrian Piper, Mythic Being: Cruising White Women #1 of 3, 1975, Photograph of performance. (source)

Adrian Piper, My Calling Card #1, 1986, Lithograph.(source)

Martha Rosler, Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful (Giacometti),1967–72, Photomontage. (source)

Martha Rosler, Body Beautiful or Beauty Knows No Pain (Cargo Cult), 1967–72, Photomontage. (source)

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1974–79, Ceramic, porcelain, and textile.(source)

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Stills #7 (left) and #21 (right), 1978, Black and white photographs.

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (We Won’t Play Nature to Your Culture), 1983, (left), and Untitled (We Don’t Need Another Hero), 1987, (right), Photostats.

Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Peña, The Year of the White Bear and Two Undiscovered Amerindians visit the West, 1992–1994, Performance at museums. (source)

Kara Walker, Gone, An Historical Romance of a Civil War as it Occurred between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart [detail], 1994, Cut paper on wall. (source)

Mickalene Thomas, Le déjeuner sur l’herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires, 2010, Rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel on wood panel. (source)

Édouard Manet (1832–1883), Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (Lunch on the Grass), 1863, Oil on canvas. (source)