Call for Papers | Feminist History, Theory and Practices in Twentieth Century Art

Feminist History, Theory and Practices in Twentieth Century Art

Edited by Cristina Casero and Raffaella Perna

Abstract submission deadline: October 28, 2022

Full papers submission deadline: March 17, 2023

The exhibition Women Artists: 1550-1950, curated by Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin, which opened at the LACMA – Los Angeles County Museum of Art in December 1976, was the first major traveling exhibition dedicated to the historical-critical rediscovery of the work of more than eighty women artists from the Renaissance to European and North American Modernism. In 2007, the Brooklyn Museum celebrated the show’s 30th anniversary with another ambitious exhibition, Global Feminisms. New Directions in Contemporary Art, curated by Maura Reilly and Nochlin, featuring a selection of contemporary women artists active since the 1990s worldwide. In the three decades separating the two projects, art and art history have undergone profound changes that are reflected in the different critical and curatorial criteria and perspectives underlying these exhibitions. The critical debate ushered in by feminist-oriented studies over the past four decades has touched on complex issues involving, among other things, the appropriateness of rewriting art history, or, rather, art histories, from a perspective that considers the experience of women artists placed on the margins of the art system, investigates the motivations for such marginality, and highlights the potentially revolutionary aspects of a gaze from the margin. Feminist art criticism has questioned the possibility of tracing specific traits of a women’s art, while keeping in mind the danger of formulating essentialist interpretations, based on a conception of the feminine understood as a biological and ahistorical category, disengaged from social, cultural, political, and economic phenomena. With a critical gaze, feminist theory has turned inward to question methodologies and interpretative models, with the awareness that to rewrite art history it is not enough to add a list of women's names or yet another “ism” to a historical-critical analysis based on masculine criteria. Art criticism has also questioned, especially in the 1980s, the links between feminism, Modernism, and Postmodernism, and the openings and changes generated by the decolonial and intersectional perspective. Feminist studies addressed, as a priority, the ambiguous and unstable relations between art, politics, and subjectivity, finding close points of tangency with LGBTQ+ studies, to question the existing heteronormative system; it probed the differences between action and performance and the political meaning of the body, referring to the contribution of other disciplines, such as psychoanalysis, semiology, linguistics, film theory, anthropology, and sociology. Because of its peculiar indexical status, photography plays a crucial role in this context and becomes a privileged tool for many female artists working on themes related to identity, gender, the bodily sphere, and self-portraiture.

Organized by the research center FAF – Fotografia Arte Femminismo (Photography Art Feminism), this CFP Feminist History, Theory and Practices in Twentieth Century Art is part of the activities promoted by the PRIN La fotografia femminista italiana. Politiche identitarie e strategie di genere (Italian Feminist Photography. Identity Politics and Gender Strategies).

This issue of piano b aims to promote an in-depth study around the following themes:

• Photography as a language for exploring gender identity: women’s contribution in Twentieth Century Italian photography and photographic criticism.
• The places of feminist photography in Italy: reflections around magazines, galleries, archives, and museums that have fostered the visibility and circulation of women photographers’ work.
• Photographic self-portraits: women as objects/subjects of representation.
• Photography, performance, and identity roles: the political dimension of the body in photographic images.
• Strategies of feminist activism in Twentieth Century art.
• Artists’ self-portraits and autobiographies as modes of rewriting art history.
• From the margin: the rediscovery and appreciation of the work of women artists and photographers left in the shadows of official historiography.
• Art criticism and feminist theory: the links between visual arts, feminism of difference, intersectional feminism, and Queer theory.
• Decolonizing the gaze: the entanglements between the feminist horizon and postcolonial studies in art theory and practice.
• Links between art and women’s movements in the specific Italian context of the Twentieth Century: places of aggregation and channels of diffusion.
• International networks: exchanges between Italian and international women artists.
• Women and art institutions: the practices of valorization of women artists’ work implemented by museums, galleries, archives, and research centers in Italy.

Furthermore, in order to submit an article, applicants must also comply with the following indications:

By October 28^th, 2022, proposals can be sent to redazione.pianob@unibo.it as a .doc file including an abstract (maximum 1500 characters, spaces included), five keywords and a short biography (maximum 600 characters, spaces included) of the contributor, whose evaluation will be entrusted to the Guest Editors of the issue. Abstract, biography and keywords must be submitted in English as well as in the original language of the text.

Once confirmation of acceptance of the abstract by the Editorial Staff has been received (by November 18^th, 2022), an article (a monographic article or an essay) may be prepared and sent, which must not exceed 30,000/40,000 characters (notes and spaces included). It could be accompanied by a maximum of 6 images. The text, which may be written in Italian, English or French, must fit in with the editorial guidelines of the journal. All articles must be sent to the same e-mail address by March 17, 2023, specifying the title of the article, the name and surname of the contributor in the body of the accompanying email.

Each article that will arrive at the editorial office will undergo a double-blind peer-review process, being anonymously sent to two referees. If the opinions of the two referees are in contrast, the Scientific Editors, together with the Guest Editors, will decide whether to publish or send it to a third referee. The Editorial Staff will contact the authors to communicate the outcome of the evaluation.

The publication of the issue is planned for July 1^st, 2023.