Feminist Art and Exhibitions
Feminist Art and Exhibitions: History and Challenges with Anja Foerschner
Duration: Mar 16 – Apr 13, 2021
Fee: 172€
Max seats: 32
Enroll before: Mar 11, 2021
Dedication: 3 hrs/week
Since its emergence in the early 1960s, Feminist Art has remained one of the most relevant political art forms of our time. Pioneering and utilizing innovative art forms such as conceptual art, performance art, video art, and body art, as well as reinventing forms of expression traditionally considered “female”—such as fiber art or ceramics—feminist artists continue to radically challenge social, cultural, and political norms as they relate to women and, in particular, women artists. This course will look at how feminist thinking has influenced the arts since the 1960s, both in Western as well as selected non-Western contexts. It will present the foundational feminist theories that furthered the radicalization of female artists and trace their manifestation in the visual arts. Due to its strong political content and often taboo-breaking visuality, feminist art continues to present its own set of challenges to curators and museum professionals. The course will introduce students to the most important exhibitions of feminist art and discuss their strategies, premises, and criticism. In addition, the course will present curatorial practices and exhibition formats that follow feminist premises.
The course will include archival material as well as video and photo documentation of key feminist art works and exhibitions. Participants will be given a reading list and weekly assignments.
Week 1. Introduction
- Introduction to the program and course overview.
- This is a one-hour-only welcome session. The lecturer will introduce the program and participants will introduce themselves. No prior preparation is necessary.
Week 2. Western Feminism: Art and Exhibitions
- Key exhibitions of Western Feminist Art: strategies, premises, and criticism
- First and Second Wave Feminist Art
- Key theories and texts
Week 3. Global Feminisms: Art and Exhibitions
- Issues of definition and terminology of Feminism and Feminist Art
- Radical Women: Feminist Art from Latin America
- Gender Check: Feminist Art from Eastern Europe
Week 4. Feminist curating
- Feminist Artists’ Initiatives and Alternative Venues
- Challenges of Feminist Art for curators and museum professionals
- Curating Feminist Art/Feminist Curating
Week 5. Contemporary Feminism
- Contemporary Feminism/4th Wave Feminism/Post-Feminism
- Feminist Art and new technology
- New forms of representation and communication in Feminist Practice
Anja Foerschner is an art historian and curator based in the Netherlands. Originally trained as a visual artist, she holds a Master’s degree in Art Pedagogy, Art History, and Philosophy (2008) and a PhD in art history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich (2011). She previously worked at Munich’s Haus der Kunst and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Her research encompasses modern and contemporary art with special emphasis on performance art from Los Angeles and former Yugoslavia, Feminist Art, the human body in contemporary art and culture, and the emotion of disgust in art. Recent exhibitions include WWI: War of Images, Images of War at the Getty Research Institute, We are the Artists, Titon Gallery, Johnson City, as well as Marta Jovanovic’s performances Motherhood and Ljubav.