Contemporary Art And Feminism

This important new book examines contemporary art while understanding the key role feminism has played in enabling current modes of artmaking, spectatorship and theoretical discourse.

This important new book examines contemporary art while foregrounding the key role feminism has played in enabling current modes of artmaking, spectatorship and theoretical discourse.

Contemporary Art and Feminism carefully outlines the links between feminist theory and practice of the past four decades of contemporary art and offers a radical re-reading of the contemporary movement. Rather than focus on filling in the gaps of accepted histories by ‘adding’ the ‘missing’ female, queer, First Nations and women artists of colour, the authors seek to revise broader understandings of contemporary practice by providing case studies contextualised in a robust art historical and theoretical basis. Readers are encouraged to see where art ideas come from and evaluate past and present art strategies. What strategies, materials or tropes are less relevant in today’s networked, event-driven art economies? What strategies and themes should we keep hold of, or develop in new ways?

This is a significant and innovative intervention that is ideal for students in courses on contemporary art within fine arts, visual studies, history of art, gender studies and queer studies.

Introduction; Chapter 1: From the politics of representation to a politics of acts; Chapter 2: Beyond performing identities ; Chapter 3: Feminism and the pedagogical turn in art; Chapter 4: Craftivism: a material ethics of care; Chapter 5: Avant Gardening: Western landscape, ecofeminism and First Nations’ care for country;Chapter 6: Feminist worlds: reimagining community and publics; Conclusion

"This book is an exciting contribution to the history of contemporary art. Not simply giving an account of ‘feminist art’, Millner and Moore instead interrogate how feminist thinking and practice has impacted, influenced, and changed forever contemporary art. ‘Feminist art’ after all, is not a subsection of the art world, but a name describing how a set of politics has impacted art. That this book, with its internationalism viewed from Australia, decenters the dominant contemporary art world adds to the radical potential in its pages."

- Hilary Robinson, Professor of Feminism, Art, and Theory, Loughborough University, UK

"How refreshing to encounter provocative, grounded research from the flexible periphery of global feminisms operating in culturally complex, postcolonial Australia. Millner and Moore offer erudite, empathetic studies of contemporary art, mostly Australian, which accommodates Western and First Nations cultural perspectives. Practising feminist pedagogy, the authors listen respectfully to artists of many cultural groups and life experiences and discuss artmaking across genres. Guided by feminist politics and ethics, the authors demonstrate the myriad ways material images and performative actions move the imagination of artists and audiences. They affirm the affective, transformative power of feminist art in our turbulent century."

- Marion Arnold, Lecturer in Critical and Historical Studies, Loughborough University, UK

"A much-needed, and exciting study of feminist energies and inspirations in the shaping of contemporary art, intensely sensitive to places, histories and complexities and their entwinement and to the urgencies of our challenged world addressed by wide-ranging creative practices."

- Griselda Pollock, Professor emerita of Social and Critical Histories of Art, University of Leeds, UK

"With a primary focus on Australia, this book updates overall our knowledge of how feminist politics and ethics a