Feminism Reframed

Book excerpt: Feminism Reframed: Reflections on Art and Difference addresses the on-going dialogue between feminism, art history and visual culture from contemporary scholarly perspectives. Over the past thirty years, the critical interventions of feminist art historians in the academy, the press and the art world have not only politicised and transformed the themes, methods and conceptual tools of art history, but have also contributed to the emergence of new interdisciplinary areas of investigation, including notably that of visual culture. Although the impact of such fruitful transformations is indisputable, their exact contribution to contemporary scholarship remains a matter for debate, not least because feminism itself has changed significantly since the Women’s Liberation Movement. Feminism Reframed reviews and revises existing feminist art histories but also reasserts the need for continuous feminist interventions in the academy, the art world and beyond. With contributions by Anthea Behm, Alisia Grace Chase, Jennifer G. Germann, Catherine Grant, Joanne Heath, Ruth Hemus, Alexandra Kokoli, Beth Anne Lauritis, Griselda Pollock, Karen Roulstone, Anne Swartz and Sue Tate. “Coming at the moment when contemporary art practices are themselves involved in re-cycling, re-evaluating and re-enacting the past, this collection asks how feminism’s own ‘troubled’ histories can be reframed productively in the present. The questions that feminism raised in the 1970s and 80s are still pertinent, and are addressed in a number of original essays: What does gender equality mean in the arts? How can women’s subjectivities be articulated or performed differently in art practices? Can attention to gender enable us to engage with complex differences of race, sexuality and class, of age and generation? Do we need new interpretative and conceptual models for writing about art? Alexandra Kokoli’s thoughtful and illuminating introduction reminds us that reframing is a risky but exciting business if it makes us ask these questions anew, with attention to the politics and aesthetics of the present.” —Rosemary Betterton, Lancaster University