This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

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    Feminist Art

    Key decade: 1970s

    Terms: Pattern and Decoration, Feminism, "Performalism"

    1. A climate of protest (Women question and seize the Phallus)
      1. Benglis image
      2. Bourgeois of the '40s compared to Bourgeois of '68 (as celebrated by Mapplethorpe in the '80s)
    2. Reclaiming Women's art(s)
      1. the Her-itage (Kahlo, O'Keeffe)
      2. Pattern and Decoration: '70s New York (also see Kozloff's Harvard Square T)
        1. Miriam Schapiro
        2. Joyce Kozloff
        3. Robert Kushner (the issue of men in feminism)
      3. Womanhouse – founded 1971 in Los Angeles by Schapiro and Judy Chicago
      4. Chicago's Dinner Party, "central core" imagery, questions of labor
    3. The Goddess thing - Painting, Installation, Performance
      1. painting: Nancy Spero, Sylvia Sleigh
      2. performance (sometimes also installation):
        1. Bourgeois' Destruction of the Father 1974, performance of body parts and "lair" installation (see web)
        2. Rachel Rosenthal, 1970s performances
        3. Ana Mendieta, 1980s photo/performances
    4. The Angry/ Funny Woman thing – Feminist Performance Art
      1. Essentialism (1960s, but was it so?) vs. the constructed subject of sex (1980s)
      2. "The personal is the political" – > body politic (Ono '64, Export '69, Bourgeois '74, Schneemann '75)
      3. Performing / contesting gendered roles in the 70s
        1. Mierle Ukeles "Maintenance Art Manifesto" 1969
        2. Eleanor Antin, "Carving: A traditional sculpture," 1972
        3. Hannah Wilke "Starification Series" 1974, performalism
        4. Laurie Anderson "Object/ Objection/ Objectivity" 1973
      4. '90s Feminism – or "post" feminism ?
        1. Continuities: Janine Antoni, Rachel Lachowitz
        2. Disruptions: Vanessa Beecroft (see video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wut1PDf74Dc&feature=related)

    Slide List

    Bourgeois Fillette 1969
    Bourgeois Lair 1968 (cf. Destruction of the Father, 1974)
    Schapiro Personal Appearance 1973 (fabric collage)
    Kozloff Untitled 1978-79 (fabric hanging)
    Chicago Rainbow Picket 1965
    Chicago Atmosphere at Santa Barbara Beach 1969
    Chicago Female Rejection Drawing 1974

    Womanhouse 1971/72:

    Rooms:

    • Dining Room (Bachenheimer, Brody, LeCoq, Mitchell, Schapiro, Wilding)
    • Menstruation Bathroom (Chicago)
    • Womb Room (Wilding)

    Performances:

    • Ablutions (Chicago?)
    • Cock and Cunt Play (Wilding and Lester)

    Chicago Dinner Party 1973-79
    Sleigh Lilith (for Sister Chapel) 1976
    Mendieta Silueta Series 1978 (gunpowder, earth, ..., body, tree, mud)
    Ukeles Maintenance Art performance series 1969-77
    Ukeles Ceremonial Arch Honoring Service Workers... 1988
    Wilke S.O.S.: Starification Object Series 1974-75
    Wilke Hannah Wilke Through the Large Glass 1976
    Anderson Fully Automated Nikon: Object, Objection, Objectivity 1974
    Antoni Loving Care ("I soaked my hair in dye and mopped the floor with it") 1993
    Antoni Chocolate Gnaw/ Lard Gnaw 1992
    Lachowitz Homage to Carl Andre 1996

    "Feminist" Alternatives

    Joyce Kozloff, Untitled, 1978
    Shapiro, Fan of Spring, 1979

    The climate of protest fostered by '60s and 70s feminist writings by authors such as Betty Friedan (Feminine Mystique), Kate Millet (Sexual Politics), Germaine Greer (The Female Eunuch) and others emerged in the art world through exhibitions ("Old Mistresses") and the work of artists trying to investigate women's craft traditions, and rescue these from the oblivion to which modernism had consigned them.

    Judy Chicago, Rainbow Picket, 1966

    Judy Chicago (who chose a generic name rather than exist under a patronym) began, in her own mind, as a "macho" minimalist, geometric and rigorously abstract. Her work was still pigeonholed as "decorative" and she sought a radically different context for the production and reception of her art.

    Chicago and Shapiro and students, Womanhouse, 1972 (photos)
    Judy Chicago, Dinner Party, 1966
    Judy Chicago, Dinner Party (Emily Dickinson place setting), 1966

    What issues of authorship and production were raised by these feminist projects?

    Mendieta, Silueta series, (beach and pigment piece), 1973-80
    Mendieta, Serie arbol de la vida, (Iowa), 1976

    Cuban-born artist Mendieta adapted feminist Performance Art and Earthworks to her own vision, which sought a reorientation of views of women's bodies in art. No longer would they be commodities, but would return to an "essence" identified with ancient goddess cults of the earth. Mendieta was not the first to produce this reorientation, but she has become one of the most well-known. Her marriage to Carl Andre and tragic death have both played a role in this posthumous fame.