Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, VALIE EXPORT and Carolee Schneemann are among the 48 artists to be featured in an upcoming show Feminist Avant Garde of the 1970s: Works from the Verbund Collection, showing this October at the Photographer’s Gallery. It will explore the art — from photography to performance and films — of a generation of women whose taboo-breaking, norm-questioning works changed the art canon forever, and opened up new ways for understanding gender, representation and sexual politics.
Through their unflinching examination of female identity, these women provided a counterpoint to the entrenched male gaze of the art industry, and in doing so struck a powerful challenge to the dominant ideals of patriarchy that still resonates strongly today.
Among the more than 150 works will be the art of lesser-known but no less important artists, offering the chance for new generation to discover the works of feminists such as Birgit Jürgenssen, Ewa Partum and Nil Yalter.
Feminist Avant Garde of the 1970s: Works from the Verbund Collection is at the Photographer’s Gallery 7 October 2016 — 8 January 2017.
Credits
Text Clementine de Pressigny
Imagery courtesy Photographer’s Gallery