FEMINIST ART MOVEMENT

It's March and that means it is Women's History Month! This entire month I'll try to stick to talking about women in the art world. To start it off let's talk about the Feminist Art Movement, a movement that brought all genres of art into one strong force. A great book to look up would be WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution because it has many many examples of artists who defined the Feminist Art Movement and pushed for equality.

In the 1970s, Art moved from Modernism to a movement that opened doors to many different types of artists with many different ideas of what art could be. One of the most interesting things about this movement is that if you were a woman artist and making art, you were in the feminist art movement no matter what. It didn't have to be controversial or make a statement about women in the art world it just needed to be art. Of course there were many pieces that were speaking their minds and they were in the forefront of the revolution. 

Some think that one of the inspirations for the Feminist Art Movement was Yoko Ono. Especially her piece "Cut Piece" where she invited anyone to come up and cut her clothes as she just sat there unemotional. In 1965 this was pretty huge in the art world, and this piece was considered one of the most shocking art performance pieces ever done. You can see parts of this performance here:

Inspired by Yoko Ono's performance piece, another performance artist, Marina Abramović did a piece titled "Rhythm 0: 1974". In this performance Marina sat there just as Yoko did unemotional and had a table with a rose, feather, honey, whip, scissors, scalpel, gun, and a single bullet. In the end, it was a test of how people react which started off more passive and ended very aggressive. At one point a person even aimed the gun at her. Brave as she was, Marina Abramović is someone who put her idea before her personal boundaries just to get the point across. 

In total the many artists of the Feminist Art Movement were trying to express sexual, material, social, and political views on women. Here's a list of just a few important feminist artists that were apart of the Feminist Movement or inspired by it: Jenny Saville, Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan, Bridget Riley, Mary Beth Edelson, Yvonne Rainer, Silvia Kolbowski, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Kiki Smith, Chantal Akerman, Lynda Benglis, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Valie Export, Mary Heilman, Sanja Ivekovic, Ana Mendieta, Alice Neel, and Annette Messager and many many many more. 

+Stay tuned this month for more about women in art+