gender, culture, and politics
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Langa, Helen > (ed.)
- Creator
- Wisotzki, Paula > (ed.)
- Publish Year
- 2015
- Shelfmark
- VS 54 2015 - B
- Thesaurus
- kunstenaressen, loopbanen, dagelijks leven, historisch, Verenigde Staten, 20e eeuw, bundel
- Description
- Numerous American women artists built successful professional careers in the mid-twentieth century while confronting challenging cultural transitions: shifts in stylistic avant-gardism, harsh political transformations, and changing gender expectations for both women and men. However, while a few women working during these decades have gained significant recognition, many others are still consigned to historical obscurity. The essays in this volume take varied approaches to revising this historical silence. Two focus on evidence of gender biases in several exhibitions and contemporary critical writings: the rest discuss individual artists’ complex relationships to mainstream developments, with attention to gender and political biases, cultural innovations, and the influence of racial/ethnic diversity. Several also explore new interpretative directions to open alternative possibilities for evaluating women’s aesthetic and formal choices. Contents: Introduction: challenges, tensions, accomplishments / Helen Langa. Part I Exhibitions: Opportunities and Resistances: Art of this century: a transitional space for women / Siobhan M. Conaty: Gender, modern art, and native women painters in the first half of the 20th century / Cynthia Fowler. Part II Survival, Politics and Gender: Dorothy Dehner's early career: leftist politics and complicated myths / Paula Wisotzki: Elizabeth Catlett in Mexico at mid-century: navigating gender and visual politics across cultural borders / Melanie Anne Herzog: Honoré Sharrer: a Cold War reception / M. Melissa Wolfe: Strategies of artistic survival: Julia Thecla’s science fictions of the 1960s / Joanna Gardner-Huggett. Part III Alternative Media, Alternative Visions: Innovative etchings: Louise Nevelson at Atelier 17 / Christina Weyl: The crafted abstraction of Ruth Asawa, Kay Sekimachi, and Toshiko Takaezu / Krystal R. Hauseur: Withstanding entanglement: Claire Zeisler and 1960s fiber art reconsidered / Mary Caroline Simpson. Part IV From Formalist Abstraction to Feminist Agency: A rose by other names: lesbian artists, formalism, coded representation / Helen Langa: Departing the plane: Charmion von Wiegand’s otherworldly abstractions of the 1950s / Aliza Edelman: What Alma Thomas teaches: the district as art lesson / Seth Feman: Performing agency in Carolee Schneemann's The Queen's Dog (1965) / Mary McGuire.