summary reflection essay

AH 309: Art and Social action since 1960.

Reading and discussion guide for early Feminisms in America.

Norma Broude and Mary Garrard:

1. How did Lucy Lippard characterize 1970s feminist art?

2. How did this art help initiate postmodernism?

3. Historically, what (manifold) social, critical and art world beliefs have limited the opportunities of women artists?

4. How do women artists of the 1950s-60s differ from those of the 1970s?

5. How have women artists been positioned (or interpreted) and re-positioned by critics, and for what reasons?

6. Why didn’t the romantic construct of “the self vs. society” hold up for women artists? What strategies and ideas did they explore instead?

7. What is “essentialism” and what are its problems? According to the authors, how “essentialist” are the artists of the period?

8. Why is the work of Cindy Sherman a problem?

Rebecca Schneider:

1. What does the author mean when she writes of Schneemann’s Eye/Body: “Nudity was not the problem. Sexual display was not the problem. The agency of the body displayed, the author-ity of the agent—that was the problem…”

2. How does Schneemann’s work deal with a “both/and” concerning gender as “essential” and a “construct,” according to the author?

Gloria Orenstein:

1. What are the reasons women artists explored the idea of the Great Goddess? Who explored these ideas, and why?

2. What are the various qualities or attributes represented by the Great Goddess?

3. Why did many women find Jungian conceptions of the Great Goddess initially useful? How did this change, and why?