DOI Artikel:
Jakubowska, Agata: "I po co ten feminizm?": o feministycznej historii sztuki
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49352#0318
304
Agata Jakubowska
„And whafs the point ofall this feminism?’’
On Feminist Art History
This text has arisen from the conviction that while
feminist thought comprises an extraordinarily
essential element of modern-day humanities, in Polish
academic life it has remained unknown and does not
receive interest from most researchers.
The article attempts to familiarize what is defmed
as being feminist art history - in which the author
traces its beginnings and development, presenting the
objectives feminists set themselves in conducting the
impact they have madę on a discipline which until
then had remained blind to gender.
This taking into account of the ąuestion of gender
(in rclation to the creator and recipient, representation
and countenance) is treated as an element linking the
most varied approaches of feminist art historians.
The author divides the developments of feminist
art history into three parts in relation to the successive
decades of activity in this new area of research. She
shares the conviction of most writers that feminist
art history came into existence at the beginning of
the 1970s. It was at this time (i.e. in 1971) that Linda
Nochlin’s text Why Have There Been No Great
Women Artists? was published, outlining the
problems on which female researchers focussed their
attention: they carried out a generał review of art
history, seeking out women who had been creatively
active, simultaneously researching the difficulties
these artists had encountered. The work conducted
at this time was primarily documentary in character,
in accordance with the attempt to find a place for
women in art history as it already existed, rather than
seeking to alter it.
The alteration in the paradigms of this discipline
was to become one of the main tasks that feminists
set themselves in the 1980s. They took up themes
that had only been alluded to in the previous period,
criticising notions and convictions upon which art
history is based. Drawing on the work of
poststructuralists, from now on they defied the
interpretation of art as a product of the universal
individual, criticising, among othcrs, such concepts
as genius or canon.
A particularly significant field of activity also
embraced interpretations of works of art. In
considcring the same works which from the very start
had been an object of interest for art historians, they
also however posed new questions; especially
concerning the way in which relations between the
two sexes manifest themselves in various dimensions
of the work.
The variety of theoretical principles on which the
feminists based their investigations (marxism,
structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis and
others) indicates the extraordinary diversity of the
texts originating from this decade. This variety was
to be maintained in ensuing years, although an
inereasing number of texts discussing the actual
problem of the relationship existing between feminist
interpretations and postmodernism, as understood in
the broadest terms, began to come out. On the one
hand the writers of such texts State the obviousness
of certain shared aims (among these the overthrowing
of universal paradigms), while on the other they
demonstrate that the treating of feminist art history
as one of the manifestations of conducting academic
research in a postmodernist way weakens the political
dimension (above all the links with the women’s
movement).
In the studies of recent years a significant change
of emphasis has occurred relating to a certain degree
to this „depol iticising”: while previously attention was
concentrated on the oppressive power of images
portraying women which functioned in culture, their
performative function has now been recognised.
Attention is drawn to the fact that in its dialogue with
visuality femininity is created and with it - what is
most essential, sińce it reflects the shift from women’s
to gender studies - masculinity.
From the current perspective, after almost thirty
years of relations between feminism and art history,
the slogans adopted at the very outstart which drew
attention to the fact that gender in relation to art plays
a key role are the ones which have retained their
relevance. While being aware that the methods
applied are varied, feminist art historians endeavour
to create a discipline in which the ąuestion of gender
shall continue to exist, not as an important
investigative category, but rather as an element which
cannot be avoided.
Translated by Peter Martyn
Agata Jakubowska
„And whafs the point ofall this feminism?’’
On Feminist Art History
This text has arisen from the conviction that while
feminist thought comprises an extraordinarily
essential element of modern-day humanities, in Polish
academic life it has remained unknown and does not
receive interest from most researchers.
The article attempts to familiarize what is defmed
as being feminist art history - in which the author
traces its beginnings and development, presenting the
objectives feminists set themselves in conducting the
impact they have madę on a discipline which until
then had remained blind to gender.
This taking into account of the ąuestion of gender
(in rclation to the creator and recipient, representation
and countenance) is treated as an element linking the
most varied approaches of feminist art historians.
The author divides the developments of feminist
art history into three parts in relation to the successive
decades of activity in this new area of research. She
shares the conviction of most writers that feminist
art history came into existence at the beginning of
the 1970s. It was at this time (i.e. in 1971) that Linda
Nochlin’s text Why Have There Been No Great
Women Artists? was published, outlining the
problems on which female researchers focussed their
attention: they carried out a generał review of art
history, seeking out women who had been creatively
active, simultaneously researching the difficulties
these artists had encountered. The work conducted
at this time was primarily documentary in character,
in accordance with the attempt to find a place for
women in art history as it already existed, rather than
seeking to alter it.
The alteration in the paradigms of this discipline
was to become one of the main tasks that feminists
set themselves in the 1980s. They took up themes
that had only been alluded to in the previous period,
criticising notions and convictions upon which art
history is based. Drawing on the work of
poststructuralists, from now on they defied the
interpretation of art as a product of the universal
individual, criticising, among othcrs, such concepts
as genius or canon.
A particularly significant field of activity also
embraced interpretations of works of art. In
considcring the same works which from the very start
had been an object of interest for art historians, they
also however posed new questions; especially
concerning the way in which relations between the
two sexes manifest themselves in various dimensions
of the work.
The variety of theoretical principles on which the
feminists based their investigations (marxism,
structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis and
others) indicates the extraordinary diversity of the
texts originating from this decade. This variety was
to be maintained in ensuing years, although an
inereasing number of texts discussing the actual
problem of the relationship existing between feminist
interpretations and postmodernism, as understood in
the broadest terms, began to come out. On the one
hand the writers of such texts State the obviousness
of certain shared aims (among these the overthrowing
of universal paradigms), while on the other they
demonstrate that the treating of feminist art history
as one of the manifestations of conducting academic
research in a postmodernist way weakens the political
dimension (above all the links with the women’s
movement).
In the studies of recent years a significant change
of emphasis has occurred relating to a certain degree
to this „depol iticising”: while previously attention was
concentrated on the oppressive power of images
portraying women which functioned in culture, their
performative function has now been recognised.
Attention is drawn to the fact that in its dialogue with
visuality femininity is created and with it - what is
most essential, sińce it reflects the shift from women’s
to gender studies - masculinity.
From the current perspective, after almost thirty
years of relations between feminism and art history,
the slogans adopted at the very outstart which drew
attention to the fact that gender in relation to art plays
a key role are the ones which have retained their
relevance. While being aware that the methods
applied are varied, feminist art historians endeavour
to create a discipline in which the ąuestion of gender
shall continue to exist, not as an important
investigative category, but rather as an element which
cannot be avoided.
Translated by Peter Martyn