Press Release

Feminist Artistic Theory and Practice: Debates, Issues, Perspectives
with Nicole Schweizer and Elvan Zabunyan
Debate (5/6)
Tuesday 4 May 2004

Nicole Schweizer (born 1973) is an art historian, curator and research assistant at the Basel Kunstmuseum

“History and politics: can art history survive feminism?” This was Griselda Pollock’s provocatively worded contribution to one of the rare books published in France with a title combining the notions of feminism, art and art history (Yves Michaud, ed., Féminisme, art et histoire de l’art, Paris: Espaces de l’art, 1994). Taking its lead from the same question, and referring to recent writings by Griselda Pollock herself (Leeds) as well as authors such as Lisa Tucker (London), Irit Rogoff (London) and Mieke Bal (Amsterdam), this discussion considers the changes of perspective induced by feminist interventions in the discipline of art history. How has feminist criticism displaced the object(s) around which the discipline was traditionally articulated? What new objects did this bring about and how, as an effect of these, does(do) feminist art history(ies) need to keep repositioning itself(themselves)? And in light of this, is it possible for feminist art historians to work in a “disciplinary” manner?

Elvan Zabunyan (born 1968), lecturer in the history of contemporary art at the Université de Rennes 2, art critic and curator

In 1975 Valie Export wrote that “Women must use all media as means towards social struggle and social progress with the objective of liberating culture from exclusively masculine values”. How can women artists escape the paradox of being both alienated by their gender and liberated by their consciousness of their sexual identity? In the 1970s, when feminism was beginning to be theorised in accordance with its inscription in many different disciplines, it was at its most visible in contemporary art. The women artists who decided to undertake an analysis of the status of women and feminism in their visual representations did so in a radical manner. Their activism and artistic practices attempted to define a new aesthetic form. Thirty years later, these same artists have become historic figures while as a result of new developments in the present their discourse is as relevant as ever. And so, while they are still producing new work, it is their practice from the “feminist 1970s” that gets the most media attention. What, then, is the status of women and feminist artists today?