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Carolee Schneemann performing her piece Interior Scroll

The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to make art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and reception of contemporary art. It also sought to bring more visibility to women within art history and art practice. Corresponding with general developments within feminism, the movement began in the late 1960s and flourished throughout the 1970s as an outgrowth of the so-called second wave of feminism; its effects continue to the present. The nation’s first feminist art education program took place at California State University, Fresno in California in 1970 when fifteen female students and instructor Judy Chicago helped pioneer key strategies of the early feminist art movement, including collaboration, the use of “female technologies” like costume, performance, and video, and early forms of media critique. Judy Chicago went on to found the feminist art program in Los Angeles with Miriam Schapiro which led to the creation of the 1972 installation WomanHouse. The strength of the feminist movement allowed for the emergence and visibility of many new types of work by women, but also including a whole range of new practices by men.

A small number of mostly American women, among the many thousands associated with feminist art, are artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, founders of the first known Feminist Art Program (in Fresno, California), Suzanne Lacy, Faith Wilding, Martha Rosler, Mary Kelly, Kate Millett, Nancy Spero, Faith Ringgold, June Wayne, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Dara Birnbaum, art-world agitators The Guerrilla Girls and critics, historians, and curators Lucy Lippard, Griselda Pollock, Arlene Raven, Catherine de Zegher, and Eleanor Tufts. The Woman's Building was an important center of the Los Angeles feminist artist movement in the 1970s and 1980s in which meetings, workshops, performances, and exhibitions regularly took place. The Women's Interart Center in New York, founded in the 1970s in New York City, is still in operation. The Women's Video Festival was held yearly for a number of years in the early 1970s, also in New York City. Many women artists organized and working groups, collectives, and nonprofit galleries in locales around the world.

Inside the Visible, curated by Catherine de Zegher in 1996 at the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston, exhibited works by 35 international women artists from the 30s, the 70s, and the 90s and presented a new theoretical interpretation for the art of the twentieth century (Inside the Visible, MIT press). The book Women Artists at the Millennium (Carol Armstrong and de Zegher, MIT Press/October books, 2006) was based on a conference of historians and artists that was held at Princeton University in 2001. Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution, (2007) curated by Connie Butler for Los Angeles' Geffen Center, or Museum of Contemporary Art, MOCA, a recent, more comprehensive, historical exhibition, examines the international foundations and legacy of feminist art, focusing on the period of 1965–1980, during which the majority of feminist activism and art-making occurred. The exhibition, which is currently (April 2008) in its third venue, at PS1 in New York City, focuses on artists from the United States but also includes the work of a number of women from Central and Eastern Europe, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Inclusion in these shows and books did not suggest that the women have announced an "allegiance" to feminism but only that the work had been deemed important and influential. Feminist artists, particularly those living in Europe, have a significant presence in so-called new media (electronic media and internet-based work).

[edit] The Feminist Art Project

The feminist art project (TFAP) was founded by the Institute for Women and Arts at Rutgers University. It is a collaborative national initiative celebrating the Feminist Art Movement and women's impact on the visual arts, art history, and art practice from both past and present. It promotes feminist education in the arts, events, and publications through its online website and it works to network and facilitate the development of feminist art programs throughout the United States. It also brings together authors, feminist artists, curators, critics, and teachers from all backgrounds to refocus upon and celebrate the beauty and accomplishments of the Feminist Art Movement. Its primary goal is to increase the visibility of feminist art and to promote the Feminist Art Project. The TFAP has six regional groups in every region of the United States dedicated to building awareness of the Feminist Art Movement and spreading the beauty and power of feminist art. As a result of the formation of the TFAP, many universities have created courses dedicated to surveying women's accomplishments and contributions to the art world, and many workshops have been put on around the nation teaching and displaying the dynamic elements of feminist art.

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[edit] External links

Feminist Art Project Timeline
Feminist Art Project (Rutgers University)
The Woman's Building (Los Angeles)
From Site to Vision, a complete e-book about the Los Angeles Woman's Building
Oral history interview with Suzanne Lacy about the early years of the Feminist Art Program first at Fresno State and then at CalARTS
Information about the first Feminist Art Program at Fresno State University
Women's Caucus for Art
New York Feminist Art Institute
Judy Chicago
In: In Visible Culture Catherine de Zegher presents feminist art theory and women artists
n.paradoxa:international Feminist Art Journal - The only known international journal addressing the work of contemporary women artists and feminist theory, founded in December 1996.