Feminist Art and the Avant-Garde It

statement is undoubtedly true, it is also true that with the emergence of radical feminist art and militant feminist artists in the 1970s, a new spirit of the avant-garde was born. The story of the avant-garde has typically been one of ômutual support among a community and reception of art by a public, all participants enmeshed in systems of personal and economic relations (Altshuler, p. 8).

Feminist art, by its very nature, was a form of confrontation with a complex social world that had previously denigrated womenÆs contributions to the arts (Barzman, p. 327)

Feminist art presented a manifesto and its ôcentral node of (that) confrontation was the exhibition, where artists, critics, dealers, collectors, and the general public met and responded to what the artist had done" (Altshuler, p. 8). One such

exhibition was the 1973 ôWomen Choose Women,ö mounted at the New York Cultural Center to raise the collective consciousness of the various art institutions in New York City after a confrontation a year earlier between the Women in the Arts (WIA) group and the Museum of Modern Art (Lubell, p. 66).

. . .
sion were selected from 700 slides anonymously based on a number system. Each member of the panel had the opportunity to nominate the work of five other women outside of the WIA. Thus, says Lubell (p. 66), ôthe occasion of Women Choose Women (politically) represents the realization of the ability of (all) artistsö to overcome hierarchical and bureaucratic aspects of the museum system along with the potential of women artists for a more independent and egalitarian coexistence with such institutions. It is no accident that what the show depicted artistically was the recurrence of specific forms, line, pattern, and symbols which suggests a uniquely female imagery. Lubell (p. 66) characterized this as not a system through womenÆs work can be identified, but a phenomena of note in a group as large and as diverse as that represented in the exhibition. For example, Nancy EllisonÆs ôOpening,ö depicts a cross-section half of a pear, in which the vaginal reference is unmistakable and emphasized by the use of soft mauve and peach flesh tones. Similarly, Ruth Ann FredenthalÆs ôUntitled,ö is a warm pink and flesh tone painting in which the regular line produces tension and movement among color areas. Globular forms are employed
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Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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