Art, Activism, and Feminisms: Sites of Confrontation and Change

Abstract

Much has been written over the last four decades on feminism, art, and the critical relationship between the two. Art as political activism also has been the subject of many scholarly writings, and political artwork frequently intersects or explicitly engages scholarly writing. Much has been written, but much also has been left out, and readers seeking information regarding art informed by feminist concerns and intended as an intervention might be frustrated by current offerings. Texts that are simultaneously engaging, informative, and critically self-conscious of their place in a hotly contested, ideologically loaded-and potentially revolutionary-field, are rare. While content should be the primary focus when evaluating a book, an appealing book can be an important tool or ally, particularly in a course devoted to exploring how art can create, change, or jam culture; aesthetics become content within books on feminism, art, and activism. Even issues of cost, a perennial concern for college students, take on new significance in this context, for accessibility, the power to reach as large and varied an audience as possible, is an important component of art concerned with social and economic justice. Grounded in these thoughts, I began to look at each of the following four books for useful and inspiring discussions of feminists, who make art in order to intervene in, act upon, or change existing modes of culture. I turned first to Art and Feminism by Peggy Phelan and Helena Reckitt. Published in 2001, the book is out of print but still readily available. With the majority of its pages devoted to images of work by dozens of feminist artists (all women), the book's structure is designed to support the claim