The Queer Feminist 1980s
Until recently, the 1980s in the United States existed largely in art historical narratives as a period of cultural production inflected by a widespread conservative turn. The rightward shift in national politics, exemplified by Ronald Reagan’s successful presidential campaign and the onset of the Culture Wars, seemed to signal defeat for the radical artistic practices that had emerged out of liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. For histories of feminist art, the 1980s are positioned between the vibrancy of the so-called Second and Third Waves.
This panel joins a growing body of scholarship that looks anew at the 1980s, focusing on the ways that queer artists negotiated feminism in the art and visual culture of that decade. Topics include Sarita Johnson’s images of Black lesbian families; alternative media and HIV/AIDS activism in the work of Zoe Leonard; and the legacy of critic Jill Johnston’s Lesbian Nation. In centering the contributions of queer feminist artists, the panel reframes the 1980s as a vibrant period when marginalized artists innovated forms of critique and methods of display, enabling the formation of new cultural communities.
Field of Study:
United States of America
Twentieth Century
Feminisms
African Diaspora
Queer/Gay
Chairs:
Sarah Louise Cowan,University of California, Berkeley - sloucowan@gmail.com
and
Emma Rose Silverman,Smith College - esilverman@smith.edu