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Femininity, Time and Feminist Art

This monograph is the result of ten years of research. It investigates feminist art of the 1970s through contemporary art made by women, but works against the grain of dominant art historical narratives’ reliance on influence and chronology - examining less obvious but often more significant connections between women artists of different generations. Femininity, Time and Feminist Art proposes fresh arguments about how feminist art history tells its own story and what constitutes ‘critical’ art practice. The book employs an innovative methodological approach in which contemporary artworks, some of which are positioned at the margins of feminism, become the source for understanding earlier feminist art, providing new interpretations of artworks framed by a broader enquiry concerning how femininity can be understood in relation to time and historical change.

As part of Palgrave Macmillan’s well-established Culture and Media series, Johnson’s monograph will contribute to a new understanding of feminist art history, feminist theory and the evolution and significance of women’s art practice. It engages with current debates that revisit the feminist movement of the 1970s traversing several disciplines - art history, cultural studies and women’s studies - and also curatorial practices.

Femininity, Time and Feminist Art builds on Johnson’s earlier work including, ‘What Do Radical Feminist Art Films Look Like? Desire and Duration in Sam Taylor-Wood’s David (2004)’, a paper delivered at Radical British Screens symposium at UWE (September 2010); ‘Female Agency and Affective Tyranny in Tracey Emin’s Why I Never Became a Dancer (1995)’, a paper delivered at A Carnival of Feminist Cultural Activism, York University (March 2011) and ‘Preposterous Histories: maternal desire, loss and control in Carolee Schneemann’s Interior Scroll and Tracey Emin’s I’ve Got It All’, Feminist Media Studies, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 2010).