Art and Feminism: Twenty-First Century Perspectives

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Notes

1. These include: ‘Global Feminisms’ (Brooklyn Museum, New York, 2007); ‘Wack!’ (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2007); ‘elles@centrepompidou’ (Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2009–11); ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ (Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, 2007); and ‘The Furious Gaze’ (Montehermoso Cultural Centre, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2007). Local projects and exhibitions in Australia that attest to this growing recognition include: the artist-run feminist collective and gallery LEVEL established in Brisbane in 2010; ‘A Different Temporality: Aspects of Australian Feminist Art Practice 1975–1985’ (Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2011); ‘Slow Burn: A Century of Australian Women Artists from a Private Collection’ (S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 2010); ‘The Baker's Dozen’ (UTS Gallery, Sydney, 2012); ‘No Added Sugar: Engagement and Self-Determination/Australian Muslim Women Artists’ (Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, 2012); ‘The F Word’ (Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 2012–2015); ‘Look. Look Again’, the first major exhibition and symposium on the contribution of women artists to Australian life and culture (Cruthers Collection of Women's Art, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia, Perth, 2012); ‘Contemporary Australia: Women’ (Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2012); ‘Sexes’, a month-long program of feminist- and queer-inspired work (Performance Space, Sydney, 2013); ‘Backflip: Feminism and Humour in Contemporary Art’ (Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, 2013); ‘Chicks on Speed: SCREAM’ and feminist art symposium (Artspace, Sydney, 2013); ‘Janis I and II’ (The Commercial and MCLEMOI Gallery, Sydney, 2013); CoUNTess blog (Melbourne, 2008–present); ‘Curating Feminism’, exhibition and conference convened by the Contemporary Art and Feminism project (Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney, 2014); and ‘Future Feminist Archive’, exhibition and symposium convened by the Contemporary Art and Feminism project (Sydney College of the Arts and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2015).

2. Alexie Glass, ‘Extimacy: A New Generation of Feminism’, Art and Australia, 47, no. 1 (Spring, 2009): 132–139.

3. For example, some critics argue that feminism is used to validate the work of artists such as Charmaine Wheatley and Vanessa Beecroft who assert their right to be sexual objects, while leaving sexist assumptions intact. See Jayne Wark, Radical Gestures: Feminism and Performance Art in North America (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006).

4. Robert Leonard, ‘Feminism Never happened’ (catalogue essay, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2010).

5. See CoUNTess, www.countesses.blogspot.com.au/

6. Consider the radical didacticism and activist orientation of recent work by Brown Council, Kelly Doley and Amanda Rowell's ‘JANIS’ exhibitions, Margaret Mayhew, Jane Polkinghorne, Courtney Coombs and the LEVEL collective, Caroline Phillips’ ‘F-Word’ projects, and many others.

7. Alex Martinis Roe, interviewed in Review Interview, August 2012, www.reviewinterview.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/artist-interview.html (accessed May 15, 2015).

8. Cited in Glass, ‘Extimacy’.

9. See the often-cited passage in Jo Anna Isaak, Feminism and Contemporary Art: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Laughter (London: Routledge, 2002).

10. Cited in Wark, Radical Gestures, 87.