Taken from our proposal:
The main reason to propose a discussion topic for the EFF was my thought that feminist art could not be missed at a forum like this, enlarging visibility of different kinds of feminist art to a feminist audience.
Feminist contemporary art consists of performances, painting, tapestry, video, installations, lectures, stencil graffiti, books, hacktivism, digital art, interactive projects and more. There is feminist art that uncovers cultural and economic power structures that determine art, taste and philosophy, through different appearances than for example a scientific research —though a visual similarity between art and science isn’t unthinkable, let alone the similarities in methodologies.
An artist can challenge the borders of art, make them elastic or break them over and over again. An artist can also look for the door to leave this dominant fiction. To me this choice is a feminist one, illustrated with a quote from Donna Haraway’s ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and Privilege of Partial Perspective’ (1991):
“It is, of course, hard to climb when you are holding on to both ends of a pole, simultaneously or alternately. It is, therefore, time to switch metaphors.”
So, feminist art can be institutional critique, but can it also be a tool for feminist activism?
Can art accomplish emancipation of queers or awareness of gender performativity in society —to my mind a good cause?
What do feminist artists do besides activist deeds that are unrecognizable as art (and not to forget unpaid) and gallery and museum pieces that reach small, and enclosed audiences?
Together with Nina Höchtl, Carla Cruz and Francesco Ventrella, who each deal with these questions in their own practices, I would like to start an Affinity Group about art and feminism (trans / gender and queer activism) in order to show (and share) strategies of feminist artists.
Suzanne van Rossenberg
