Radical Gestures: Feminism and Performance Art in North America

by Jayne Wark

Performance art was finally recognized as an art form in its own right in the 1970s. In Radical Gestures, Jayne Wark situates feminist performance art in the US and Canada in the social context of the feminist movement and avant-garde art from the 1970s to 2000. She shows that artists drew from feminist politics to create works that, after a long period of modernist aesthetic detachment, made a unique contribution to the re-politicization of art. Wark brings together a wide range of artists, including Lisa Steele, Martha Rosler, Lynda Benglis, Gillian Collyer, Margaret Dragu, and Sylvie Tourangeau, and provides detailed readings and viewings of individual pieces, many of which have not been studied in detail before. She reassesses assumptions about the generational and thematic characteristics of feminist art, placing feminist performance within the wider context of minimalism, conceptualism, land art, and happenings.

Genres: Feminism

304 pages, Hardcover

First published August 14, 2006

Reviews

[Alicia]

Great primer for anyone interested in feminist performance art. Cycles through many artists (which you can’t take for granted these days) in order to challenge homogenizing, generational frameworks for the genre. Appreciated how the book referrer to Martha Rosler as a semi-oppositional, but still incredibly relevant, feminist artist.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

i thought i would know everything about feminist performance art after finishing this book, but i was mistaken. this book just scratches the surface, although it's nicely written.