Bad Girls

by Marcia Tucker

Catalog of exhibitions held at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, Jan. 14-Feb. 27 and Mar. 5-April 10, 1994. With essays by Marcia Tucker, Marcia Tanner, Linda Goode Bryant, and Cheryl Dunye
"Bad Girls is a serious exhibition about the plurality of contemporary feminist art. . . . Tucker should be congratulated for staking her territory smack in the middle of current feminist debates."
-- "The Village Voice" "Bad Girls' satirical sendup of feminism is refreshing . . . excess and outrageousness is the rule."
-- "The New York Observer"

Unconventional and distinctly "unladylike, " Bad Girls considers many issues and controversies raised by the recent exhibitions "Bad Girls" and "Bad Girls West, " mounted in New York and Los Angeles respectively. But the central issues it examines are humor, transgression, and the critical and constructive potential of laughter in the work of a new generation of Bad Girls. Humor is the connecting force between the 45 artists in "Bad Girls, " and it is clear that they express themselves in ways that their mothers probably would not have approved of. But they don't care.

Genres: Art

Paperback

First published March 18, 1994

Reviews

[Emily Casella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Retitle this Nasty Women and it still would be relevant for today. What this book struggles with however is execution of design and structure as a book. I went going into this book thinking it was a about a catalog for an art show. It says it is, but structurally it is more essays that were evoked by the show. So I still don't have any idea what art was included in this exhibition or who was included. There was also the issue with the random pictures on the page of people's faces and artwork. That really didn't go with what was being discussed in the essay on the page. It also didn't include pictures of the artwork they were actually talking about. So It was really disconnected and confusing. I really liked the topics and issued discuss, because it is still issues we are dealing with in 2017. Like appropriation, women artists not being taking seriously and how women have to present themselves as a political statement everyday. Oppenhiem and Oko Ono were discussed.
My favorite quote from this was: "And the 'bad girls?' Well, those are the good ones-those who find agency through self and not through the appropriation of the cultural forms of others. Bad girls make art that comes out of experience and not style, out of conviction, not trend; they references, themselves, not others. Bad girls are those who in a circle made with folded arms, can stand alone and hear their souls." (Cheryl Dunye107)