The power of feminist art

Since its inception nearly 25 years ago the Feminist Art movement has presented a challenge to mainstream modernism that has radically transformed the art world. In The Power of Feminist Art, coeditors Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, professors of art history at The American University in Washington, D.C., bring together many of the influential art historians, critics, and artists who participated in the events of the 1970s. Together, they have created this landmark volume, the first history and analysis documenting this fertile and dynamic period of artistic growth. We learn about the first feminist art education programs, with artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro helping to lay the foundation; about the now legendary Womanhouse project; and about such banner exhibitions as "Women Artists: 1550-1950," organized in 1976 by art historians Linda Nochlin and Ann Sutherland Harris. We follow the development of the movement as seen in the various feminist organizations, networks, exhibitions, and publications it generated; and most particularly in the emergence of feminist art. Performance art, social protest and public art, and collaboration; exploration of such formerly taboo aesthetic areas as "Pattern and Decoration"; and subjects such as divinity and the body viewed from female perspectives are among the multiple aspects of the Feminist Art movement. The last section of the book traces the ups and downs of the movement, as experienced through the backlash of the 1980s and the resurgence of women's issues in the 1990s. Uncompromising, probing, thoughtful, and as provocative and exciting as the period itself, The Power of Feminist Art is an immensely stunning book. Reproductions of hundreds of works of feminist art from the 1970s and beyond - by such artists as Judith Baca, Harmony Hammond, Joyce Kozloff, Barbara Kruger, Ana Mendieta, Alice Neel, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Miriam Schapiro, Cindy Sherman, Nancy Spero, May Stevens, and Hannah Wilke - and the meticulously researched essays make this an invaluable source book and major contribution to American art and social history.