Featuring a wide variety of work from artists both well-known and under the radar, this dynamic book reveals how women artists reclaimed control of the feminine image in photography, video, and performance art. This book documents a tectonic change in the way women portray themselves in art. Historically, women were depicted as a projection of male fantasies, prejudices and relationships. However in the 1970s, for the first time, female artists began to investigate visual representations of their own selves. They studied their own bodies and created the prospect of determined feminine identities. Editor Gabriele Schor explores the Feminist Avant-Garde to emphasise the role that these artists played for the last four decades. The results are provocative, radical, poetic, ironic, angry, cynical and heartfelt. Most of all they are honest, sharing a collective consciousness that reassessed and even rejected, what came before, turning to new ways of expression in the fields of photography, performance, film and video. Included here are works by Cindy Sherman, Ana Mendieta, Nil Yalter, Ketty La Rocca, Birgit Jurgenssen, Renate Bertlmann, Francesca Woodman and other fearless female artists from around the world. Their work explored the female experience in all its dimensions - pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood, sexuality, partnership, beauty standards, rape and the female body. Each artist is introduced by an essay and the volume also includes fascinating interviews with leading curators in the field of feminist art. This important book emphasises the accomplishments of women artists who have made a name for themselves while encouraging and inspiring those who have come after them. AUTHOR: Gabriele Schor is Director of the SAMMLUNG VERBUND in Vienna, Austria. She has curated numerous exhibitions and has published many works, including monographs of artists Birgit Jurgenssen and Francesca Woodman as well as the catalogue. 700 colour illustrations
