Description
Book SynopsisIn
A Time of One’s Own Catherine Grant examines how contemporary feminist artists are turning to broad histories of feminism ranging from political organizing and artworks from the 1970s to queer art and activism in the 1990s. Exploring artworks from 2002 to 2017 by artists including Sharon Hayes, Mary Kelly, Allyson Mitchell, Deirdre Logue, Lubaina Himid, Pauline Boudry, and Renate Lorenz, Grant maps a revival of feminism that takes up the creative and political implications of forging feminist communities across time and space. Grant characterizes these artists’ engagement with feminism as a fannish, autodidactic, and collective form of learning from history. This fandom of feminism allows artists to build relationships with previous feminist ideas, artworks, and communities that reject a generational model and embrace aspects of feminism that might be seen as embarrassing, queer, or anachronistic. Accounting for the growing interest in feminist art, politics, and
Trade Review"Grant’s evocative writing delineates the affective contours of collective art participation, and she vividly transports the reader with her on various expeditions – to an outdoor group performance in a wintry Trafalgar Square, to cacophonous choral readings of feminist texts or sitting alone on the last quiet days of a gallery exhibition. One of the true pleasures of the volume is its deep attentiveness to the textures, materials and experience of works of art, interwoven with the author’s compelling account of how cultural encounters strengthened her feminist consciousness."
-- Victoria Horne * Burlington Contemporary *
"Grant’s writing opens avenues for imagining possible feminist pasts, presents, and futures." -- Julia Alting * Trigger *
“An original, associative and compelling account of archival fever and fandom in feminist practice … An exemplar for the ways we can, and should, learn together.”
-- Susannah Thompson * Art History *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction. Anachronizing Feminism 1
1. Fans of Feminism 21
2.
Killjoy’s Kastle in London 47
3. A Time of One’s Own 67
4. A Feminist Chorus 87
5. Conversations and Constellations 109
Conclusion. Rooms of Our Own 133
Notes 151
Bibliography 179
Index 205
