feminist art in 1970s essays

feminist art in 1970s essays Although womens art has been present throughout the whole history of art, feminist art as a political and art movement has emerged in late 1960s and established itself in 1970s. Several countercultural movements arose simultaneously with feminism in the 1960s as part of postmodernism. At this time the United States has experienced social upheaval coming with the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, economic prosperity, the arrival of oral contraceptives, reforms in the Catholic Church, assassination of the president John F. Kennedy, and experimentation with psychotropic drugs. Political, scientific, and cultural tumult has greatly influenced the emergence of feminist movement, thus feminist artists. Social politics have been a great part and a reason for art. The key principle was consciousness raising, defined by womens movement theorists as a method of using ones own experience as the most valid way of formulating political analysis (Bronde). Feminist artists point out that thro ughout most of recorded history males have imposed patriarchal social systems in which they have dominated females. The goal of feminism, said early spokeswoman, was to change the nature of art itself, to transform the culture in sweeping and permanent ways by introducing into it heretofore suppressed perspective of women (Bronde). Feminism created a new theoretical position and a new aesthetic category-the position of female experience. Feminists felt that not only women artists, but women as an audience have been neglected for ages as well because audience responds to art with whose maker they share common beliefs or experience. By the early 1970s feminism has engendered a recognized art movement. Throughout Europe and United States feminists came together to organize women-only exhibitions and formed groups dedicated to consciousness raising, activism, and research. The first womens liberation movement group exhibition was held...