How the personal became (and remains) political in the visual arts

Abstract

Second-wave feminism ushered in major changes in the visual arts around the idea that the personal is political. It introduced radically new content, materials and forms of art practice that are now characterised as central to postmodern and contemporary art. Moreover, longstanding feminist exercises in ‘personal-political’ consciousness-raising spearheaded the current use of art as a testing ground for various social interventions and participatory collaborations known as ‘social practice’ both in and outside of the art gallery.1