art history summary reflective essay

AH 270: Art/Identity/Politics

Reading and discussion guide for West Coast feminism, Suzanne Lacy and the Guerilla Girls

Raven on Womanhouse:

1. Why was “home” as the site of Womanhouse an integral component of this project?

2. How and why were “consciousness-raising” exercise used by the Feminist Art Program and in Womanhouse?

3. Think of the various ways the installations, conversations and performances explored the relationship between biology and gendered social roles. For you, which of these works/event/issues is still current, and which seem dated?

Lippard on Dinner Party:

1. As perhaps the most influential feminist critic of her time, it is important to get a handle on what Lippard values in early feminist art. What reasons does she give for her exalted review of Chicago's Dinner Party?

2. Why is collaboration (the “benevolent hierarchy”) so important?

Jeff Kelley on Suzanne Lacy:

1. How does Lacy conceive of the Body?

2. About what subjects, and with what strategies does Lacy attempt to raise our consciousness in works such as: Inevitable Associations, 3 Weeks in May, In Mourning and in Rage, Whisper the Waves, the Wind?

Elizabeth Hess on the Guerilla Girls:

3. What circumstances in the art world and politics led to the formation of the Guerilla Girls in the mid-1980s What strategies do they use?

4. What strategies do they use?

5. What do they protest?

6. Why was anonymity originally important to them? Has this changed?

7. What problems confront their efforts, now that they are a success?

8. How compelling (or successful do you find her work, and why?