Lynn Hershmann Leeson !Women Art Revolution The Movie

The Film “!Women Art Revolution” by Lynn Hershmann Leeson is an impressive work.  (the image above by Spain Rodriguez is from a graphic novel based on the film). We all know the story of course, of the feminist art movement, but Leeson has collaged earlier and later interviews with benchmark artists, dramatic timelines graphically represented and vintage footage. It has a good pace and we are caught up in the drama of the story of women who turned the art world upside down from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Of course, this is an artist’s perspective. There was no reference to Linda Nochlin’s famous essay that started feminism in art history “why have there been no great women artists” and the affiliated exhibitions.

Leeson included two critics substantively, Arlene Raven (although not as a critic’s voice, but her personal story), and Ruby Rich, film critic. Moira Roth appeared briefly, and Lucy Lippard even more briefly, a critic whom I consider the most important of the era.

Curators were better represented with Marcia Tucker humorously telling her own very important story. The main story though is the usual history of US feminism, Starting with Judy Chicago in 1971 with a workshop in Fresno going through the Cal Arts Program, Woman House, Woman’s Building 1975, and from 1985 the Guerrilla Girls, who  are a separate and crucial story.

This is the enshrined history of feminist art in the US. All the interviews are available online. 

So, what about all the other stories?

There was a brief interview with the ever fabulous Faith Ringgold, but bell hooks was absent. bell hooks articulately explained why feminism in general and feminism in the art world, in particular, excluded women of color or to be more succinct, was racist. Other artists of color included were Howardena Pindell and Adrian PIper, and briefly Lowery Stokes Sims. All very articulate, as well as prestigious.

Judy Baca managed to mention the important fact of the vast gulf between feminism and her community based work with youth at risk.

Martha Wilson, founder of Franklin Furnace, provided a refreshing dissent from the narrative line, and of course Martha Rosler is always about more than meets the eye.

A friend of mine said to me. “Why weren’t you included?” It tells us a lot about how history is constructed for me to answer that question, which is only my own particular place in these decades. But so many people have related reasons for not being part of history.

First, I was from NYC and my mother did not do housewife stuff. So I didn’t have a model, or a suburban life style to rebel against which was a reference point not only for some of the artists, but also the content of their work.

Second, at the time of the eruption of feminism in the early 70s, the famous California stories, I was first in Boston, then Houston Texas, then Austin Texas.  I had no catalytic community of feminists.

Third, I admit it, I was a conservative then. I did get involved with anti war protests in Boston, but feminism and especially feminism in the art world was not a compelling concern of mine.

Fourth, I became excited about feminism ( in general, not art world concerns)  when I saw the Dinner Party in, of all place, Clear Lake City Texas, ( where NASA is located) in 1979. I was at that time critic for Artforum for the state of Texas, so I drove the four hours there from Austin to see it ( of course Artforum wasn’t interested in 1977)

Fifth, I was raising a child alone and working full time.

Sixth, when I held a teaching job at Mills College I was immersed in feminism,  but my best friends were philosophers, not artists.

Seventh, by the early 80s I was even more geographically challenged, teaching at remotely located Washington State University in Eastern Washington.

Eighth, in the 1990s I moved back to Texas and did get involved with the Women’s Caucus for Art (not mentioned in the film!). At that time the board was dominated by artists of color, so my real introduction to feminist art was among women artists of color who were addressing intensely social issues.

That is still my interest today. Not simply women getting shown and sold, which was what mostly concerned the feminist artists in the film, but with women artists and all artists who represent social issues.

So I am not part of this enshrined history of feminist art, and neither are any of the powerful women I met in the WCA, all of whom are well known aritsts: Flo Wong, Imna Arroyo, Gail Tremblay, Clarissa Sligh, Yong Soon Min and many more.

And then there is the global component, and feminism outside the US! I went global in 1995 when I went to the NGO women’s conference in Hairou China with the WCA. We met amazing women changing the world from the ground up. It was overwhelming. I was also the lone representative of the International Association of Art Critics to the conference, but art criticism wasn’t ready for global feminism. I only did a short article in thier newsletter.

So the movie is described as exploring “the relationship between feminist art and the 1960s antiwar and civil rights movements and shows how historical events sparked feminist actions against major cultural institutions.”

This is a little misleading. What was the relationship of these privileged art students to Civil Rights – they were almost all white!  The real relationship was the idea of activism itself, the changing of the climate in the world to the idea of collective activism. And since these women were in the “art  world” that is where their activism played out.

We need another history of feminism and art in the US that begins with real world community activism and women of color who bravely spoke out about poverty, jails, drugs, domestic violence. It is out there.

Rape is a part of many of these artists stories, (emphasized only in  Suzanne Lacy’s amazing work which she continues to this day) .

Perhaps that needs to be brought onto center stage.The History of Feminist Art About Rape (see my previous blog).