Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

With 245 illustrations (118 in color), this work boasts a partisan but invaluable recounting of the U.S. feminist art movement of the 1970s. Most of the 18 contributors to the handsome, large-format volume are prominent first-generation feminist artists/historians, including Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Arlene Raven, and Linda Nochlin. Editors Broude and Garrard provide a 1990s deconstructivist overview of the times, as well as individual essays. Their evidence shows that the movement was distinct from postmodernism, involving collaborative social and political acts of feminist consciousness-raising and not limiting itself to the problem of essentialism. Essays address the 1980s backlash against feminism, reevaluating the reasons for its controversial and still-shocking image-making. The notes and bibliography are excellent. Highly recommended.-Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson State Univ., Md. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

An exciting testament to the power and enduring impact of feminist art of the 1970s, this visually overwhelming volume combines 245 illustrations, nearly half in color, with essays and interviews by Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Linda Nochlin, Yolanda Lopez and other artists, critics and art historians who participated in the movement. Some of the artists profiled sought to reclaim women's bodies from masculine objectification, while others attempted to redefine female identity, understood as a social construct. Protests against racism and sexism, avant-garde installations and performances and large-scale urban projects mingle with rediscoveries of the ancient Great Goddess. Essays document the launching of the feminist art movement in California in the early '70s and its spread through artists' coalitions, feminist journals and alternative galleries. This dynamic study reveals the still largely unacknowledged impact of feminist art on postmodernism and the contemporary art scene. Broude and Garrard are art history professors at American University. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Since its advent in the early 1970s, the feminist art movement in the US has proved to be a multifaceted and revolutionary value system as well as an early expression of postmodernist change. This book, which aims to document and define the originating phase of the movement, comprises a substantial introduction plus 16 essays grouped into four sections, which document (1) the feminist art education programs of the early '70s; (2) the development of the movement via influential publications, organizations, and exhibitions; (3) feminist art's challenge to modernism through the return to serious political and personal content based on a postmodernist aesthetic; and (4) the status and impact of feminist art in the 1980s and 1990s. Coeditors Broude and Garrard (American Univ.) enjoy substantial reputations as commentators on feminist art. Their expertise is readily apparent in the judicious selection of the 18 contributing scholars, artists, and critics. The book as a whole is authoritative, well written, meticulously documented, and unusually cohesive for a work with so many contributors. It is much enhanced by its 270 high quality illustrations, of which 118 are in full color, and by a good bibliography, excellent notes, and an illustrated time line. The book lives up to its billing as the first history and analysis of the origins of the feminist art movement; it will become a standard in the study of the subject. Recommended for all libraries with a commitment to contemporary art. General; undergraduate through professional. J. A. Day; University of South Dakota

Booklist Review

This comprehensive consideration of a watershed period in women's history and the history of art begins with the key question, What is feminist art? and then answers it thoroughly and invigoratingly. Feminist artists were the first to make art that deliberately depicted the "socialized experience of women," that is, the reality and impact of gender role restrictions, sexism, and misogyny. The 18 contributors to this well-illustrated volume--including two of the movement's primary figures, Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, and art historians Norma Broude, Mary Garrard, Linda Nochlin, and Moira Roth--credit feminist art, and feminist art activism, with opening museum and art-school doors, and the pages of art-history texts, not only to women artists and their work, but also to artists of color and diverse ethnic orientations. Feminist artists also legitimized performance and video art and revitalized figurative imagery, portraiture, and decorative art. The volume's engaging essays--accompanied by photographs of artists and critics, artworks, and events--analyze various aspects of feminist art, the work of specific artists, and the legacy of this highly charged and influential movement. ~--Donna Seaman

Kirkus Book Review

Dead white male George Santayana finds himself quoted more than once in this comprehensive record of feminist art and politics since the '70s. Painfully aware that feminism as an idea has arisen periodically since the Middle Ages but has until now never managed to last for more than a generation, the authors hope that, armed with a knowledge of feminist ``herstory,'' future artists will expand on rather than repeat the work of their predecessors. Representing a wide spectrum of feminist artists and thinkers, the 18 contributors to this impressive historical reference book include prominent women such as art historians Linda Nochlin and Arlene Raven and painter Miriam Schapiro. The book, edited by Broude and Garrard (both Art History/American Univ.), covers both art and politics, discussing such internationally famous projects as the CalArts student installation Womanhouse, as well as the contemporary activist groups WAC (the Women's Action Coalition) and the Guerrilla Girls. The authors analyze art ranging from Judy Chicago's ``central core'' imagery to lesbian performance pieces, ``great goddess'' imagery, and the pattern and decoration movement. (Le Corbusier once stated, ``There is a hierarchy in the arts: decorative art at the bottom, human form at the top. Because we are men.'') While the work represented here varies greatly in content and quality, all of it stems from what the artists often describe as ``coming to consciousness'' about their oppressed condition. For some artists this seems to have been a powerful, almost ``born again'' experience; for others it was a gradual reorientation of perspective. As this book makes clear, the collective impact of feminist thought on contemporary society has also been significant- -in the early '70s, young art historians studying past women artists discovered that slides of their work did not even exist. However, discrimination still exists: As the Guerrilla Girls' posters reproduced here show, despite a roughly equal gender mix in art schools over the past 20 years, most major galleries still show mostly men. Essential reading for any woman in the arts. (245 illustrations, 118 in color)