Understanding art as a field (of socialized human action) defined by contradictions bears on how feminism is organized as political practice within this field. Notably, some of art’s contradictions are not experienced exclusively by feminism, but also by emancipatory politics at large. Nonetheless, thinking about contradictions in

01/17 relation to the specificity of the feminist struggle in art – a struggle that has carried on, in its various forms, for at least half a century – might help put into perspective the dialectic of gains and losses perceived as the art history of feminism as much as compel a historical contextualization of feminist agency and of where its allies should be sought. Angela Dimitrakaki đđđđđđđđđđAnalyzed ad nauseum, the distinction and antagonism between “art” and “life” can possibly feature as the motherboard of contradictions Feminism, Art, that all progressive politics, including feminist politics, face today when the art field provides Contradictions the context of their realization. The art/life distinction is not philosophically reducible to the “art world/real world” binary, but is significantly related to it. Here is, for example, how: recently, a colleague and I approached an artist of noted political involvement for collaboration on a collectively executed “feminist intervention.”1 We saw and explained the project as one crossing through art (the nexus of intersecting practices whose aggregate gives us the art field) but referring to life (the totality structured by historically specific relations of production and reproduction). The artist declined. The reason was that the attempted political (feminist) intervention was attached to “an artwork.” We understood: the “artwork,” the output of artistic labor in a capitalist economy, is evidence of contradictions running through art and illuminates the latter field as the site of weak, structurally compromised, ultimately feminized politics. First and foremost, the artwork – no matter how “immaterialized” or “socially engaged” – is the carrier of both the artist’s disaffirming critique and her affirming trade, irrespective of whether this trade is supported by private capital, public funding, or a “mixed” economy.2 đđđđđđđđđđThe above applies to the output of curatorial or theoretical work as well, yet historically the artist has been a privileged subject for getting the heat. The reclamation of the “avant-garde”3

e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c as a critical concept connecting artistic labor with praxis as well as the emphasis on art and activism in, and for, the twenty-first century are symptomatic of upheld expectations with regard to artistic practice – expectations that feminism as, precisely, a politics is affiliated to: questioning, challenging, exposing, rupturing, rejecting the consensus that reproduces society as we know it. Because of such expectations, a

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT 02/17

Ađfacsimile ofđone of Lee Lozano’s notebooksđtitledđPrivate Book 1.đThis is the first in a series of elevenđpocket-sized facsimiles of all the artist’sđpublished by Karma, New York.đ

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT show called “The Feminist Avant Garde of the negotiation of a collective feminist 1970s” that is also the display, circulation, and consciousness in art – yet in terms that valorization of a corporate collection can appear differentiated the collective from a consensus to be a contradiction in terms – even as it is within feminism as a social movement. That is, presently a platitude to remind that any other the political consciousness of feminism “avant-garde” has far from avoided its (necessarily shared by feminists that sought to incorporation (sic) in capitalist art institutions, expose the art system’s bias against women as having indeed been largely discredited or, more 03/17 creative subjects) was not tantamount to a mildly, “domesticated” as a result of such unified thought, resolution, and action with incorporation.4 As regards activism, Boris Groys regard to how the gender bias of the art system has offered a perceptive analysis of the would be undone. Yet feminism has not always contradictions facing its articulation with, and been a social movement since the term as, art, finally admonishing us to “not “feminism” appeared in the nineteenth century; differentiate between victory and failure.”5 there have been periods when feminism Acknowledging the recurring problem of circulated as an idea unsupported by the “aestheticization” (an inescapable concern for momentum of an uprising.9 This is not the case feminist work, even if feminist activism is not today. We are witnessing the regrouping of discussed), Groys contends that “one can feminism as a social movement in the visibility aestheticize the world – and at the same time of, and attacks on, feminist activists; in women’s act within it. In fact, total aestheticization does marches; in campaigns such as #MeToo and the not block political action; it enhances it. Total public debates they bring forth; and especially in aestheticization means that we see the current the rise of the International Women’s Strike status quo as already dead, already abolished.”6 advocating, since 2017, for a “feminism of the Groys then addresses the issue of contradictions 99%.”10 If art is to be a site (among many) where by proposing the suspension not of aesthetic but this movement claims power and trains its of political judgment (given that the temporality potential, feminists in this field (art) must pay of political action is always the contemporary). close attention to the contradictions that This, however, goes a step further towards art’s structure it without shying away from political political disempowerment: not just accept art as judgment. Overall, it is the difficulty and negativity, not just embrace it as radical failure responsibility that comes with judgment that (well-known positions), but accept that you fail makes the aspiration to realize art politically so to distinguish between failing and succeeding in hard to meet. It is with this in mind that I have your political objectives as an artist, curator, prioritized three such contradictions to reflect theorist, and even (art) activist. on. đđđđđđđđđđInsofar as feminism is a politics, operating đđđđđđđđđđContradiction 1: Autonomy and Dependency in the art field as in other fields in real time, seeing “the current status quo as already dead, đđđđđđđđđđBeing an artist (also a curator or a writer) already abolished” would be counterintuitive. means having a professional identity. Rather than a way out of contradictions, such a Professional identities are associated with voluntarist perspective on the status quo would remuneration for labor. The neoliberal higher offer a license to become hostage to them, education regime, where education is seen as an foreclosing a consciousness that would see the investment (irrespective of whether students are feminist struggle as historically determined and, actually asked to pay fees), has built on this consequently, in need of updating its strategies professionalization of the artist. There is an and tactics. The mutation of liberal to assumed equivalence of the degrees on offer: authoritarian social Darwinism witnessed in the you choose to study art, physics, or law 2010s hardly indicates an “ultimate horizon” according to the career you want to have. The where the system of racialized, patriarchal currently popular term “art workers” indicates capitalism collapses: “Every action directed the need for artists to sell something in the towards the stabilization of the status quo” is, private or public sector in order to make a living precisely, not proving “ineffective.”7 The problem (it is instructive, in this regard, that the term is that even actions not directed to the e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c “worker” is being widely deployed rather than, stabilization of the status quo may well say, “civil servant”).11 Some (extremely few) contribute to the latter’s propagation: this is why artists become successful entrepreneurs, feminist art historians and artists, in their achieving profits – implying the possibility of groundbreaking work of the 1970s and early ’80s, upward social mobility. More often, artists fervently debated strategies and what kind of secure wages in higher education or art art-making might indeed subvert the dominant institutions while others are forced to chase nexus of social relations.8 whatever irregular income they can by providing đđđđđđđđđđSuch debates marked the emergence and various kinds of service in the sector.12 It is also

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT possible that artists (and curators) make a living comprises both a goods market and a labor outside the art field, thus subsidizing their market. creative labor, but the potential of finally making đđđđđđđđđđEntering the institution was an objective of a living through the latter does not disappear. 1970s and ’80s feminism in art but it has largely Especially as regards the difficult conditions of been discussed almost exclusively as a political art-field labor in post-Fordism, the situation is goal of feminism in the field and not in terms of well known, addressed in myriad conferences access to income and wages, i.e., as an economic and a voluminous literature.13 As the feminist 04/17 necessity. Much feminist energy and activism Danish collective Kuratorisk Action said back in focused on making the art institution, which was 2010: historically hostile to women artists (dead or alive), open its doors to them.16 Precisely, So far, we have been able to finance our however, because entry to the art institution was projects through public and private funding not just a matter of rewriting art history through without compromising our politics, which a feminist lens, but also an avenue through has been a privilege! But since the Nordic which women could join remunerated production region still doesn’t have funding programs and a sector of the economy, separatism – a for curatorial research and labour, we have strategy considered by feminists in the 1970s – been unable to secure salaries for was doomed to marginalization.17 A self- ourselves. Like so many other cultural reproducing feminist art commons never arose producers, we thus support our families by as a transformative alternative sustained by a doing odd jobs after Kuratorisk Aktion critical (feminist) mass – and today we can “office hours,” but are painstakingly aware merely speculate about how it might have that being in our early forties, we may not impacted the capitalist art field. Feminists “have the muscle” to keep up Kuratorisk sought autonomy but opted for dependency: in Aktion for another ten years while attending fact, they perceived (creative and financial) to two–three “day jobs” on the side.14 autonomy as the outcome of (institutional) dependency. The precarious economic and labor conditions đđđđđđđđđđIn a 1973 essay in the Feminist Art Journal, remain the same eight years later. Happily in the Irene Moss and Lila Katzen rejected separatism case of this collective, they founded and are now both because of the accepted universality of running CAMP, a nonprofit art center focused on art’s aesthetic criteria but also because migration “realised with support from private separatism would exclude women from sponsors” and a long list of state and related competition in the art world – accepting thus institutions.15 This, as we know, is not how things capital’s organization of labor as an unalterable typically go. Yet, the case is that women and reality.18 Yet, the fact that separatism survives in feminists in the art field are, just like everyone contemporary feminist consciousness in art is else, dependent on the institutions that control indicative of the exacerbation of capitalist the flow of cash and even credit. We are relations of production. In Sweden after 2000, therefore dependent on the capitalist system of the feminist art collective Malmö Fria production for our reproduction. It is impossible Kvinnouniversitet, or Malmö Free University for to understand women artists’ emphatic Women (henceforth MFK), defended “strategic attachment to the art institution without separatism” in terms of claiming space for the grasping their financial dependency upon it; and open discussion of contradictions faced by the it is a mistake to suggest that in the 1970s, art world’s female workforce.19 MFK argued that empowered by feminism, women sought to enter “the importance of feminist spaces is that they the art institution exclusively in order to achieve provide opportunities for self-definition” while visibility as creative subjects and challenge the importantly jettisoning a biological definition of male canon: these two political objectives femaleness and including “all persons that now constitute pure idealism if disconnected from or at some point have identified as the economic imperative that underpins them, women.”[footnote Do the Right Thing!, 42.] Yet unless one were to assume that class privilege when it comes to economic relations, this uniformly freed women and feminist artists from e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c expanded version of being-a-woman faces the financial pressures. Today, which feminist would very same (economic) dependency. In the case of accept to study while incurring debt merely in MFK, separatism became a feasible, limited- order to advance her political cause (through time experiment because there were no gaining feminist knowledge)? Like everyone else, expectations for the latter to function as a students who identify as feminists study to lasting alternative economic model for its obtain qualifications that will allow them to participants. “Self-definition,” a key concept of compete in the labor market – as regards artists second-wave feminism and the goal MFK sought and curators, preferably the art market, which to explore through strategic separatism, had to

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT be claimed, perhaps inadvertently, as a position capital? Leaving aside valid questions and in discourse rather than in the material charges about feminism’s contribution to the conditions associated with social reproduction – hegemony of neoliberalism (notably, not so far when it came to that, participants could not, of raised specifically about the art world), the course, achieve self-definition. To the extent increased professionalization of artistic identity then that contemporary feminism in art is at the core of the autonomy-dependency redeploys second-wave concepts, political contradiction facing art at present.21 I am judgment on these concepts’ contextual 05/17 referring to the autonomy of each woman as a potential – but also, crucially, their limits – must creative individual versus women’s dependency be constantly renewed. on capital’s institutions for introducing this đđđđđđđđđđThe feminist art movement of the 1970s and creativity into the exchange economy as the ’80s, launched in Western art scenes, made its bedrock of public visibility. Clearly, this claims as neoliberalism was acquiring the predicament is not only relevant to women. Yet contours of a national and transnational project, having been excluded from it for too long, women while contemporary feminism operates within in art tend to be more attached to this this project’s consummation, the impact of professional identity. It is hard to imagine that which is currently apparent on a global scale. It even those who do not identify as feminists in is now commonplace to point out that the 2010s are somehow unaware of the feminist neoliberalism has deepened divides among struggles in the art world in the 1970s and since women, further entrenching woman’s – struggles that overwhelmingly (and exploitation of woman. Global supranational understandably) focused on achieving inclusion institutions dedicated to the reproduction of and recognition within an already defined field of capital as a social relation explicitly link women’s “art.” If in the 1970s there were hopes for this emancipation (connected to concrete action field’s large-scale transformation through such as girls’ access to education) to women’s women’s participation, it is hard to entertain deployment in for-profit production as “human such hopes today: what has changed is the capital.”20 Is the discourse of self-definition artwork’s content and form while the structural compatible with women’s deployment as human elements of the art field (or rather, of the art

Placard at the International Women's Day rally on the steps of the Leeds University Parkinson Building during the 2018 USS Pension Strikes,đMarch 2018. Photo:đAlarichall/CC BY-SA 4.0

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT pyramid) remain intact. For many women, being (including blockbuster ones) focusing on recognized as a professional artist (or indeed a feminism since 2000 have served to normalize professional anything) is a hard-won gain the presence of the art institution in feminist achieved through generations of feminist effort culture, presupposing feminists’ acceptance of to place women in the public sphere – the sphere its role as the showcase for feminist artworks where production is located as opposed to the and a celebrated archive of feminist impact.27 sphere of the private dedicated to reproduction, đđđđđđđđđđIn recent years, such acceptance has been with the privatization of both spheres receiving 06/17 regularly reviewed and discussed critically by much less attention outside Marxist feminist feminist scholars.28 In many cases, the art analysis (after the 1970s and until recently, institution is found to perform a dubious marginalized in art history and theory much like ideological trade-off: the exclusion or Marxism overall).22 Women may thus be less discrediting of feminist politics and struggles is prepared to undermine this gain by questioning compensated by the inclusion of women artists’ the feminist goal of access to wages and work. In 2010s in the UK, the incorporation of “entrepreneurial” income in relation to the socialist feminism and work concerning working- competition principle (the implications of the class women or of black women artists (seen as wage relation and how it shapes subjectivity) – doubly undermined by the art system in terms of less prepared, that is, to theorize and practice gender and race) under the BP aegis at the Tate refusal. As a political stance, refusal can only be constitute cases in point. In 2011–12, the group practiced collectively and with a loud bang. If exhibition “Thin Black Line(s),” curated by artist not, it becomes a Drop Out Piece (begun c. 1970) Lubaina Himid (winner of the Turner Prize in 2017 by an individual artist – Lee Lozano – more likely and referred to as “a star at Art Basel” in 2018), to be recuperated and neutralized as an “original took place at Tate Britain as part of the “BP Art artistic vision” by the institution rather than Displays 1500–2011.”29 Victoria Horne discussed having an impact on the latter’s function;23 or it critically the BP-framed shows of 2014 “Sylvia dilutes into disparate micro-events of women’s Pankhurst” and “Women and Work: A Document withdrawal from the art economy without leaving on the Division of Labour” (a legendary research- any trace, affirming the myth of female based installation by Margaret Harrison, Kay weakness in the harsh conditions of the “jungle” Hunt, and Mary Kelly created in 1975 and outside the home. The politicization of women’s acquired by the Tate in 2001).30 In 2017, BP ended withdrawal in terms of feminist refusal is its sponsorship of the Tate under sustained therefore indispensible to the analysis of pressure from climate activists;31 yet there had autonomy-dependency contradiction. been no large-scale protest by the feminist art đđđđđđđđđđfigure partialpage 92_Dimitrakaki_6 community against the BP-Tate pact, despite the đđđđđđđđđđContradiction 2: Reform and Revolution Multinational Monitor featuring devastating đđđđđđđđđđThe struggles of the 1970s demonstrated facts about BP’s environmental destruction, that making women artists “visible” would involvement in sustaining the Apartheid in South require lifelong commitment. Success so far has Africa, and the exploitation of workers.32 What been limited, and the visibility project should these exhibitions, as projects of institutional best be seen as trans-generational.24 This is incorporation, imply is that feminist struggles in despite the fact that the gender composition of the art world may, at times, come across as the art field at present differs from the years of having lost all connection with feminist politics feminism’s second wave.25 Yet a rejection of the in the “real” world where “Indigenous and art institution is hardly imaginable today, as ecological-centered feminists have long affirmed neoliberalism’s investment in precarity has that neoliberalism’s founding ideology of endless increased our dependency: the art internship growth – achieved through the infinite extraction culture is symptomatic of this. And as regards of finite natural resources – is rooted in a instances of resistance to the culture of historical and contemporary intersection of the “employability,” Silvia Federici has stated that as domination of women, minorities, and the a feminist she recognizes “many of these tools Earth.”33 Including a socialist such as Sylvia from past and contemporary practices of Pankhurst in a museum funded by a corporation consciousness raising.”26 Yet such instances of e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c which stands for all that Pankhurst fought resistance (drawing on feminist strategies) against is a poignant way of discrediting feminist remain few and far between, and overall critique – the same as a corporation feminists continue to focus their efforts on collaborating with the Apartheid regime women entering the art institution on the terms sponsoring a museum that host shows of black set by the latter. This is not unrelated to women artists in Britain. In 2017, the exhibition concerted efforts to present the art institution as “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women a progressive friend rather than a reactionary 1965–1985” at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center enemy of feminism. The numerous exhibitions for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum nearly

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT coincided with the explosive headlines about presenting and educating the public about how the Sacklers made their fortunes: through feminist art,”37 it would mean that the public is the mass misery generated by Oxycontin educated about something called “feminist art” addiction. In March 2018, only a hundred in terms of an imaginary unity that conceals demonstrators, including artist Nan Goldin, divides and divisions, fails to distinguish gathered to protest at the Metropolitan Museum between radicalism and leaning in, and is in New York, the recipient of a donation from the saturated with the hegemony of capital as a

“philanthropic” Sackler family.34 Unsurprisingly, 07/17 social relation (rather than a mere economic the liberal establishment sought to extricate the one). When, for all their differences, dead radical individual Elizabeth Sackler from the mess of women are made to return to contexts that unethical capitalism (implying another kind is represent the status quo that they sought to the norm), while admitting that “implicating leave behind, feminism as a critique of extant Elizabeth via her father jeopardizes both of their social relations should be hearing the alarm legacies, and could make it more difficult for the bells. Living women, however, who see Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art to themselves as radicals and feminists are in a continue to bring art, diverse audiences, position to ask themselves what might constitute education, and activism under one roof.”35 What practices of “leaning in” specifically in art – is, however, the political meaning of placing practices that would leave us with an radical women, activism, and capital under one instrumentalized feminism as “individual choice” roof? If artist Artur Żmijewski, curator of the 7th that may or may not provide a slice of the pie to Berlin Biennale, could be criticized merely for the “deserving” few (this used to be called token “the attempt to frame political movements inclusion). Such cynical incorporation is the [Occupy and the Indignados] within an art logical outcome of feminist struggles seeking exhibition,” what happens to feminist radicalism mere reform. when framed within the big-money agendas of đđđđđđđđđđStruggles for reform tend to prioritize self-legitimization by means of championing participation and representation, and they have social causes?36 In an age when Facebook a much better chance at “succeeding” – if with a executives dare sell the fable of “lean-in” lot of effort. And the effort that this requires is feminism, it should be obvious that feminism is such that when the objectives are met, with not uniformly attached to anti-status-quo whatever embarrassing and even politically radicalism. Then again, feminism has already humiliating compromises, there is hardly any had to exist upon the rifts of material divides and energy left for carrying out a political anatomy of ideological divisions. If, however, it were true that the “achievement” of inclusion – when inclusion “the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art of the few in terms set by capital’s competition is the only institution in the world dedicated to principle presupposes and propagates the

Andrea Fraser’s latest publication examines the intersection of electoral politics and private-nonprofit art institutions in the United States at a pivotal historical moment, the year of 2016.

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT Sylvia Pankhurst creating decorations of the Prince's Skating Rink, c. 1911 as featured in the frontispiece of Sylvia Pankhurst,đThe Suffragetteđ(New York: Source Book Press, 1970). Photo: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT exclusion of the many. Such an anatomy was early socialists discovered a new potentiality for nonetheless attempted in the letter authored by feminism. They transformed it [feminism] from the four short-listed artists for Germany’s aspiration and ideas and integrated the biggest art prize, Preis der Nationalgalerie, in liberation of women with a social movement 2017: Sol Calero, Iman Issa, Jumana Manna, and which could envisage alternatives to the Agnieszka Polska declared that their suffering and waste of early capitalism. From institutional recognition placed emphasis on this point the conflict was explicit between the their gender and foreign nationalities rather than 09/17 two feminisms, one seeking acceptance from the their work, perverted diversity as a public bourgeois world, the other seeking another world relations exercise, generated no artist fee in the altogether.40 apparent assumption that their new visibility đđđđđđđđđđRowbotham detects a schism between a would translate to market value, posited them as reformist/liberal and a revolutionary/anti- competitors against the spirit of artistic capitalist feminism at the very point of collaboration, and placed them in an emergence of modern feminism. In the early environment plastered with the logo of the 1980s, Griselda Pollock also wrote “there are industrial sponsor, BMW.38 The letter shows a several feminisms,” but what followed this heightened awareness of the terms of inclusivity statement referred to “distinct political but is not representative of a collective feminist definitions” of key concepts feminists use (her stance: we don’t have a feminist mass of such example is “patriarchy”) and not to the critiques, exposures, and rejections. Overall, delineations of plural feminisms.41 Pollock, however, progressive forces in the art field however, concluded her essay (on feminist art striving for inclusivity seem to uphold a strange histories and Marxism) by admitting that “the view of the latter as an even field of play despite bourgeois revolution was in many ways a historic this field’s articulation in a society of defeat for women and it created the special antagonisms and rampant inequality: the “Open configuration of power and domination with Letter in Response to the Announcement of the which we as women now have to contend.”42 Why Exclusionary Belgian Art Prize Shortlist of then are not all feminists aligning their politics Candidates 2019” protesting the shortlist of just against this historic defeat? Should we accept, white men stated: “As active practitioners, we following Rowbotham, that there have been two know that a thriving and complex artistic incompatible feminisms from the outset, and landscape is only possible when artists of that feminism in the singular can be an different genders, sexualities, ethnic aspiration but has never been a reality? Or, that a backgrounds, social classes, generations and so pluralization (even a mere duality) of feminism is forth, are able to access and participate in it, and a concession made to the contradictions that the enrich it with their sensibilities and world cause of “ending women’s oppression and views.”39 The mention of “different social exploitation” faced from the start? If this would classes” presenting their “world views” to, and be a concession, it would be motivated by the within, the art establishment betrays an same spirit (of overcoming an obstacle) as anthology mentality that buries the question of Groys’s admonition to stop distinguishing why social classes exist in the first place as between failure and success in activist art: it much what it means for art to regard social would be the easy way out of having to form classes as merely “different.” Likewise, genders, political judgment, evaluate progress in relation sexualities, and ethnic backgrounds are not to a common political cause, and assume merely “different” but rather constituted through collective responsibility for any outcomes. If, entrenched relations of power – which is why however, the schism were accepted as inherent their equal representation in an art world not so and generating two feminisms, it would mean different from the real world tends to be defied. that women cannot ultimately be considered a đđđđđđđđđđThe dilemma of participation versus group (despite divides) to which a political cause separatism (and even refusal) echoes an old can be attached. It would mean that the level of division of feminism under capitalism. Sheila racially inflected class divides is so high as to Rowbotham, in her discussion of anti-capitalist make “women” a nonsubject. And this would thinking in the first half of the nineteenth e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c mean accepting that the very reality (the society century, notes that when women’s emancipation of divides where women’s oppression and supporter William Thompson argued (in 1825) exploitation intersect) that feminism is that “the liberation of women was impossible in attempting to change is the limit to feminism’s a competitive system,” political imaginary. đđđđđđđđđđBy offering suggestions for actually đđđđđđđđđđHistorically, the situation in the 1970s, effecting a change rather than simply describing when Rowbotham was writing, was quite and analysing what was wrong, these complex in the art world. Feminist art workers cooperators [the cooperative movement] and were not necessarily formally placed into

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT separate ideological camps, although the intense divides that sustain capital’s rule, access to or search for the right strategy (inevitable for a exclusion from critical knowledge becomes a movement at its genesis, by which I mean the biopolitical tool: an instrument, distributed feminist art and theory movement) proved across gate-keeping institutions, for managing ultimately divisive. Looking back to the 1970s, populations and social antagonisms. If, in the Judith Barry and Sandy Flitterman’s essay from twenty-first century, this dilemma no longer 1980 on categorizing and assessing the arises collectively for feminists in art, we need to strategies of feminist artists was one among 10/17 ask what this means for feminist politics in the many in feminist criticism at the time.43 Barry art field. It may, for example, mean that art and Flitterman announced “deconstruction” as practice committed to feminism in our times is the winner amongst feminist strategies. They unable to posit with sufficient clarity an gave good reasons for their choice, echoing the addressee for its political imagination. Whose sentiments of those feminist critics who realized emancipation then does such practice seek to that the mechanisms of women’s subjugation in facilitate? Is there an expectation that there will capitalist patriarchy were so sophisticated as to be a cumulative (political) effect of individual require pioneering methods of address within the artistic visions? Or is the feminist curator space of the artwork – Griselda Pollock’s essay expected to be the organizer and communicator “Screening the Seventies” would be a case in of such a cumulative effect? If so, what does this point.44 Yet the real causes of the division and transference of political responsibility mean for the fragmentation that the movement suffered feminism in art, for the historical constitution of did not primarily emanate from different the art field as set of practices that seem to opinions about strategies and tactics that follow closely the capitalist (re)organization of concerned the creation of artworks. Rather, such creativity into professionalized slots? division had to do with the experience of đđđđđđđđđđIf today the stakes of feminist politics, in oppression by women who necessarily occupied the art world and beyond, differ to those of hierarchically contained positions in a classed, feminism in the 1970s, this is because we and racialized, society and had to negotiate their (feminists) know how far pushing for reforms can living-through-oppression in specific terms. This go: racialized patriarchy holds strong, remaining fact, however, did not dictate or prompt a perfect essential to the division of labor and the alignment between an individual’s subject establishment and management of constitution and her political consciousness. In dispossession (precarity is a form of such short, you can (and do) have women artists from dispossession) that capital requires as its a working-class background, such as Tracey founding act.47 So long as these reforms do not Emin, who can assert that “Tories are only hope challenge the core of the economic status quo – for the arts.”45 This is hardly surprising, given that is, a program of exploitation of most people that the art world is presented as the glamorized and certainly most women – they are potentially epitome of self-realization, and to what extent realizable with the right amount of pressure and feminist reforms were not tied to that horse when certain parameters concur: the system can remains a moot point. allow for a few “successful” women artists so đđđđđđđđđđNonetheless, in earlier and more radical long as they don’t shun art fairs. At the same social moments, such as in the first half of the time, however, we need to safeguard the right to 1970s, the strategies concerning the making of reform, now explicitly threatened by the rise of radical artworks had clearly to do with the white male supremacy (and authoritarian intended public for feminist art practices. The masculinity at large). Despite this development, very notion of “strategies” contested, in the question is whether feminist politics can be (political) principle, the idea of the artwork as just reformist or whether any reforms need to be the playground of an individual imaginary and relentlessly assessed by a revolutionary, complete self-realization. The renowned debates transformative consciousness – one that does in Anglophone feminist art history around an not foresee, through unfounded projections, the “accessible” and a “difficult” feminist art need corpse of the status quo in a coffin as a future not be reiterated here;46 yet it is worth stressing fait accompli but that recognizes its engagement that the feminist conflicts echoed well-known e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c in a larger-than-life struggle devoid of a Marxist debates on aesthetics and politics over messianic belief in ultimate success. This would whether art (here meaning artworks) should be mean renewing political judgment on art at any realist (associated with accessibility or, worse, moment, which can only happen within the populism) or distanciating and disruptive of art’s context of a feminist art movement: the idea of normative form of gratification (demanding or, “politics” implies contestation in the semblances worse, elitist). This dilemma typically arises in of the “polis” we have. Reforms realized without relation to artistic practice engaged with the intensity of struggle generated by a social emancipatory politics because, in the material movement are just that (reforms), and to the

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT extent that they placate the spirits, they Women’s Strike.50 An effort to understand the undermine the very possibility of a feminist origins, propagation mechanisms, and political revolutionary consciousness. impact of such contradictions is becoming đđđđđđđđđđAbandoning reforms is politically increasingly urgent in the face of a reinvigorated, unthinkable for feminism, its gains being so far a transnational, patriarchal political discourse history of reforms. But what must be mutating into authoritarian leader cults. The art accommodated is, first, that reforms are not field is not unconnected to these developments, secure and, second, that reforms that dominant 11/17 and Hito Steyerl remarked already in 2010: “The forces allow for do not, by way of accumulation, traditional conception of the artist’s role lead to social transformation: more female corresponds all too well with the self-image of curators and more female art graduates have not wannabe autocrats, who see government led to a nonsexist art world. At the beginning of potentially – and dangerously – as an art form. the twentieth century, the Marxist revolutionary Post-democratic government is very much leader Rosa Luxemburg wrote that “the struggle related to this erratic type of male-genius-artist for reforms” is “the means” while “social behavior.”51 Given that feminism in art sought to revolution” the “aim.”48 In saying this, she undermine the male genius doxa already in the opposed tendencies within partisan positions 1970s, it should be evident that its continuous that regarded the “now” of the socialist manifestation all the way to the 2010s raises movement – the struggle – as the exclusive questions about the efficacy of reforms aiming at focus and an end in itself, without a clear idea its eradication. about a long-term goal. This long-term goal would be the criterion for developing strategies and tactics in the here and now. Broadly, we need to ask: What is feminism’s long-term goal? If this goal is to end patriarchy, can this be achieved within capitalism’s class society? If the goal is women’s equality with men, which men does feminism mean – as it is unlikely that these would be the black men populating the prisons of America? And what about the idea that feminism should today be “beyond the limits of woman?”49 đđđđđđđđđđThe pluralization of feminism into feminisms threatens precisely to eclipse from the horizon a unifying, long-term goal by which to gauge current reforms. In the absence of such a goal, what would prevent the various feminisms from contradicting each other? Feminism’s pluralization implies, at best, a present of unfocused and opportunistic reforms where feminist energies are expended and, at worst, a continuous clash of antithetical feminisms. There is no obvious remedy for this fate. đđđđđđđđđđIn the art field, there is much need for a serious feminist debate of the reform/revolution contradiction, and a collective elaboration and rethinking of these very terms in all their interconnectedness. In short, we need a feminist dialectic on reformist pragmatism and revolutionary consciousness. Initiated in Argentina in 2017 but of global purview, and following upon revelations on the art world’s endemic sexism, the text of We Propose – Declaration of Commitment to Feminist Practices in Art – Permanent Assembly of Women Art Poster for the movie Redupers: Die allseitig reduzierte Workers includes a spectrum of demands, some Persönlichkeitđ(1978). of which contradict each other in essence: the call for more women in power positions within đđđđđđđđđđContradiction 3: Work and Nonwork actually existing, capitalist institutions, đđđđđđđđđđIf we take seriously the gender division of reflective of a lean-in agenda, jars with the call labor, production and reproduction, art’s to work towards the anti-capitalist International entanglement with the economy emerges as

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT fundamental to art’s realization in modernity – cannot be located biographically, and instead the socioeconomic and cultural reality fashioned requires a new form of subjectivity to be realized by capital and resistance to it, as shaped in the in the contradictions of capitalist socialization.58 nineteenth century, the century of the Industrial đđđđđđđđđđThere are many “contradictions of capitalist Revolution, and extending to the twenty-first socialization” but for women and feminists (who century with capitalism morphing into tend to be women) in art the relationship technology-led globalization.52 Despite between work and nonwork remains a central technology (from the factory to the internet) 12/17 one. Numerous artworks in the 1970s make it being the salient mark of modernity, women’s apparent that women claimed access to the “unskilled,” unpaid work at home continues identity “artist” (active in the public domain) as being ubiquitous and necessary today (unless the very antithesis of that of the housewife and delegated to low-paid and mostly female mother (confined to the private domain).59 The substitutes) while the gender pay gap persists dividing line between public and private everywhere.53 Marxist feminists engaging social corresponded to the one between work and reproduction theory argue about the racialized nonwork, mapped onto a series of related gender composition of a reconceptualized binaries: “work” was culture, social recognition working class, which would expand the remit of and visibility, creativity; “nonwork” was nature, class struggle, seeing it as “essential to social obscurity and invisibility, (domestic) recognize that workers have an existence beyond drudgery. Yet, as is often repeated, art is now a the workplace.”54 At the same time, modernity in field of engagement where work and nonwork are the twenty-first century needs to be recognized significantly blurred, which is why Hito Steyerl as a “work society,” as put by Kathi Weeks, in sought to interpret art today as a field favoring which work is far more than an economic “occupation” over labor.60 Current projects, such practice but connects instead with (persistently as Manual Labors (initiated in 2013) by Jenny racialized and gendered) practices of unfreedom Richards and Sophie Hope, openly pose the and imaginaries of freedom.55 Under the guiding question “where does work start and end?” as principle of fewer workers but greater much as they blur, through their complex productivity, the lengthening of the working day structure, the boundaries of the artwork and applies both to industrial production and office social research focused on the politics of and service work, and Weeks stresses that work (gendered) labor.61 Overall, being involved in art “is widely understood as an individual moral politically only intensifies one’s inability to practice and collective ethical obligation.”56 distinguish between work and nonwork, as von đđđđđđđđđđFor artists there is the additional Osten’s observations imply. What is crucial (what complication that art-making is considered von Osten’s analysis and projects such as Manual desirable, self-fulfilling work: a “labor of love,” as Labors point to) is that the overlapping or even per the famous phrasing of Silvia Federici, who fusion of work and nonwork does not constitute said this however about house work.57 Women liberation from the private-public antagonism artists can then be facing a double confrontation around which a key axis of feminist politics was with expectations to perform labors of love: work structured. Within a system of relations ruled by done in the home and artworks made for display capital, such overlap and fusion do not bring outside the home. Feminist artists who see their forth a unified subject. Perhaps this goal could work as politically invested and may undertake be achieved by a society where the categories of political commitments are facing the same work and nonwork were abolished and where dilemma on a triple front: home, work, and in human beings’ survival and flourishing would not politics/activism. This troubling triangle is well depend on earning money, let alone earning known. Marion von Osten has offered an money in, and through, competition. Feminists in excellent account of its radicalized version (the art must therefore address the work/nonwork version that includes emancipatory politics as relationship in capitalism – that is, in a society constitutive of the female subject) presented in a both permeated by the work imperative and 1970s feminist film, Redupers: Die allseitig organized upon the substratum of unpaid reduzierte Persönlichkeit (Helke Sander, 1978). “women’s work.” In this society, the woman

“The protagonist,” von Osten notes, e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c “photographer, feminist activist, and theorist, đđđđđđđđđđis not only photographer, feminist activist, that is, cultural producer, but also a product of and theorist, that is, cultural producer, but also a emancipatory demands and capitalist product of emancipatory demands and capitalist impositions” becomes a decentralized subject, impositions, a subject who has pulled away from but only in a negative sense. Rather than wage labor and its regulatory apparatus in the discover that she had always been such a factory or in the office, as the Autonomia Operaia subject and see in this discovery the potential of called for. At the same time, she is a Reduper (an reassembling herself, she realizes that, in the all-around REDUced PERson) – a figure who inescapable materiality of her life, she is unable

07.09.18 / 06:18:31 EDT to align her internal multiplicity with her political individuals – either to compete (art world) or direction of de-compartmentalizing herself. (And make “personal” choices (real world) – which is her multiplicity genuinely internal, in the sense speaks volumes about feminism’s failure to of belonging inherently to her psyche since the subvert the structural atomization of the moment of its emergence? Or is it, in fact, the production-reproduction circuit. Such failure internalized multiplicity of demands and bears heavily on how feminism is perceived by impositions that have piled up in the course of women entering the art field (as a subjectively her life?) Her strong sense of fragmentation is 13/17 adopted discourse rather than a politics not a rite of passage, arising in the course of premised on collective action) and on the actual extricating herself from an oppressive identity terms of women’s work. (constituted, for example, in patriarchy), but the đđđđđđđđđđNotably, since the late twentieth century end of the road, stemming from the depressing artistic labor has required far greater mobility realization that she’s all dressed up with than in an earlier modernity, where the studio nowhere to go. She is permanently locked – was the principal locus of artistic production.64 locked individually, in the solitary confinement In present practice, artists are expected to effected through the division of labor among conduct “research” and fieldwork, to install women62 – in a social complex where her work, to take up residencies, to give talks, to ultimately personal revolt can never be network nationally and internationally, to be kept completed (despite capitalism promising exactly informed about others’ work and developments this: individually realized freedom). In the clash in the field or even take up a teaching post between the need to work for a living and taking wherever in the world to make ends meet (which up an alternative life as (hard) work, the best she may be temporary or part-time, in which case can hope for is to “find herself” (sic) in an you don’t, for example, move your dependents alternative work environment – a promise made but you live in two places, e.g., “London and by the art field. Berlin”). “Itinerant artist” is not a figure of đđđđđđđđđđThe prominence of terms such as “art speech but rather describes the work conditions worker” and “artist-entrepreneur,” clearly of many “successful” artists.65 Being successful pointing to art work in terms of productive labor involves having built an international profile – in capitalist terms, have not defeated the the main aspiration of entry-level artists, which idealization of art as a field of non- or at least means that, in globalization, mobility has semi-alienated work: that is, some aspects of solidified into an ideology. The mobility this work constitute an alienating subjugation to requirement embedded in artistic labor at capital while other aspects deliver creative present (including retreats and the ubiquitous freedom, self-fulfilment, self-realization and – “residency” culture) is in direct conflict with the to remember second-wave feminism again – work of family-focused social reproduction still self-definition. These aspects are not expected from women – and where women are necessarily connected with the autonomy that single mothers, entire “components” of the income and/or wages brought to the post- contemporary art work culture (such as domestic female subject in the 1970s. It is worth residencies) may become impossible. Although noting though that in the nineteenth century we lack statistical figures, many women artists feminists (for example, in Greece) advocated opt (as in the past) to not have children so as not strongly for women’s access to art, as being an be homebound – and this can apply more in artist was deemed an acceptable profession for cases where artistic labor (and its output) middle-class women potentially threatened with involves weeks or months spent in “real” social déclassement. In the twenty-first century, given relations encountered outside the home, the the inklings that art’s invisible “dark matter” may studio, one’s town, or one’s country. Marina include more women than men and while (as Abramović is certainly right to say that “children stated in Contradiction 1) feminists continue to hold back female artists” although putting the battle for women’s access to the institutions of matter this way is a covert affirmation of the art, women’s flocking to art schools and entry to oppressive social relations men in art (and all the art field raises critical issues.63 First, it sectors) benefit from as a group.66 suggests that women, much like men, are e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c đđđđđđđđđđEffected in the second wave, this “refusal to motivated by the possibility of securing work procreate” was possibly the most radical break that is seen to minimize alienation and which from social norms that feminism ever realized: sustains the “creative” industries. Second, it its consequences in advanced economies, as further corroborates the argument that women Mariarosa Dalla Costa explains, have been differentiate between the kinds of “labor of love” profound and reverberate today, when in the rise on offer and may choose one over another (art- of ultra-conservative social values women in making over home-making) or seek to combine childbearing years are seen at least as a them. In both cases, women are called to act as potential liability to employers.67 And this gives

07.09.18 / 06:18:32 EDT the refusal to participate in reproductive labor a capitalist patriarchy feminists had to fight very different meaning: Does refusal count as hard and for many generations so that women liberation when imposed by the unwritten could access waged work, as well as gain the requirements of productivity of a woman’s waged right to abortion, and the right to choose whether labor? A woman artist may choose to drop to procreate or not. A new wave of reactionary mobility after having children but this is likely to anti-abortion discourses and policies as well as impact most negatively on her production and feminist struggles against them – from Poland to career. Let’s consider this: if an employer in an 14/17 the US – have shown how politically invested “advanced” economy of liberal reproductive laws child-bearing remains.70 If, however, feminism is tells a pregnant woman to get an abortion or she to confront the reality of women’s position in will lose her job, the woman would be expected capitalism today, including that of artists and to take the case to a court of law. If an artist has curators, it must begin the work of ideological so internalized the production requirements of disarticulation. A new round of consciousness- her profession as to exclude the possibility of raising is required: one examining what pregnancy, it is seen as the free choice of a individuals’ “free choice” means in relation to the liberated woman. Women artists can believe that reality of the labor market rather than in relation they are making such a free choice (practicing to the potential of self-definition that capital has the feminist “refusal to procreate”) as liberated every interest to retain as a useful myth. This is women. Yet such choice can be pure ideology – partly what is at stake in the work/nonwork indeed, an ideology necessary for submitting to binary for feminism at large, and specifically in the demands of the labor market as organized in art. capitalism, even (as in the case of art) wages đđđđđđđđđđOn Reflection may well be absent and the woman is asked to đđđđđđđđđđTonight I made the personal choice to not practice self-management towards the promise cook dinner for my eleven-year old kid (or myself) of procuring income. Women also believe that in order to complete this article. It was not the they are making a free choice (“I’m doing it for first time this has happened in my single-parent myself, not a man”) when they use cosmetics or household and it will not be the last, but what is get cosmetic surgery to reduce wrinkles or worth stressing is that this “personal choice” is cellulite, but one’s self tends also to be an outcome of all the contradictions discussed in constituted through dominant ideology defining this article: the writer’s autonomy through the “gender.” Feminist artists since the 1970s, from complex dependency that work in the public Europe to Latin America and beyond, have domain constitutes; the political necessity to created numerous artworks involving the social engage in reformist rethinking of the specifics imperative for women to use makeup and that in any given context shape feminists’ beautification instruments and procedures – the relationship to institutions in awareness also of Buenos Aires militant feminists art collective the divides that prevent a shared view of a Mujeres Publicas displayed many of them in their revolutionary horizon; a feminist’s reluctance to installation Museum of Torture (2004). Yet the differentiate between work and nonwork but beautification imperative is not unconnected to rather always having to decide, day in day out, on how capitalism wants its workers to be. When what kind of activities she needs to prioritize so beautification becomes a new requirement for as to maintain the alleged life-work “balance.” I women to compete in a newly launched capitalist expect that very few people who identify as labor market, as happened in certain Eastern women and feminists and are reading these lines European countries during the so-called will feel excluded from the paradigm of transition period after 1989, the new imperative bargaining, concessions, and self-management is noticed precisely because it has not yet described here – one we often endure because of congealed into ideology. Estonian artist Mare the freedom to discuss it with others. Yet this is a Tralla has addressed the valorization of “looks” juncture where, despite the resurgence of in the work ethic introduced in her native post- activism in art, our polemics appear more Soviet Estonia and post-socialist countries at confined than ever to the realm of discursive large.68 On the other hand, a comment such as exchanges – that is, the realm where politics

“she’s in excellent shape for a 39-year-old,” e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c turn, ultimately, to theory rather than become made in writing about Andrea Fraser’s looks in articulated as theory-informed practice. How do her Untitled (2003) where she appears naked and we imagine the transition from politically having sex with a male collector, seems informed theoretical exchange to the praxis of a unremarkable: the artwork was made in the US, critical feminist mass? Not if, but how: this, I chief exporter of the valorization-of-looks work believe, is the motivational question from which ethic.69 to start if we wish to face up to the reality of đđđđđđđđđđThe issue however of free choice in having contradictions that both shape our involvement children has been contentious for feminism: in with the currency of feminist struggle and

07.09.18 / 06:18:32 EDT function as concrete limits to our involvement đđđđđđ1 Women’s Movement 1970–1985, See Griselda Pollock, “Feminist eds. Rozsika Parker and Griselda being realized through art. Interventions in the Histories of Pollock (Pandora Press, 1987); đđđđđđđđđđ× Art: An Introduction,” in her and Feminism-Art-Theory: An landmark study Vision and Anthology 1968–2000, ed. Hilary Difference: Femininity, Feminism Robinson (Blackwell, 2001). and the Histories of Art, (Routledge, 1988). đđđđđđ9 The term “feminism” first đđđđđđ2 appeared in French in the first For a concise analysis of the half of the nineteenth century

15/17 public-private circuit in art, see and is attributed to utopian Nizan Shaked, “Art and Value, socialist Charles Fourier, but Reviewed,” Historical Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Materialism Blog, December 10, Vindication of the Rights of 2017 Woman, from 1792, takes the http://www.historicalmateria origins of modern feminism to lism.org/blog/art-and-value- the eighteenth century, in the reviewed-nizan-shaked, offering period defined by the French a review of David Beech, Art and Revolution. Feminism does not Value (Brill 2015). appear as a social movement in the eighteenth century in the đđđđđđ3 way that it appears, in some Indicatively, see John Roberts, countries, in the late nineteenth Revolutionary Times and the and early twentieth centuries or Avant Garde (Verso, 2015); The in the 1960s and ’70s. See Karen Idea of the Avant Garde and What Offen, “Sur l’origine des mots « It Means Today, ed. Marc James féminisme » et « féministe »,” Léger (Manchester University Revue d’ Histoire Moderne & Press, 2014); Marc James Léger, Contemporaine 34, no. 3 Brave New Avant Garde (Zero (July–September 1987): 492–96. Books 2012); the special issue of The issue of when feminism has New Literary History on the been a social movement is often avant-garde: vol. 41, no. 4 raised in relation to national and (Autumn 2010). regional contexts. See, for example, Paul Bagguley, đđđđđđ4 “Contemporary British See Gabriele Schor, The Feminist Feminism: A Social Movement in Avant-Garde of the 1970s: Works Abeyance?” Social Movement from the Sammlung Verbund Studies 1, no. 2 (2002): 169–85. Vienna (Prestel, 2016); Julian Stallabrass, Art Incorporated: đđđđđđ10 The Story of Contemporary Art See Angela Davis, Barbara (Oxford University Press, 2004). Ransby, Cinzia Arruzza, On the domestication of the Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Linda avant-garde see Okwui Enwezor, Martin Alcoff, Nancy Fraser, “The Black Box,” in Documenta Rasmea Yousef Odeh, and Tithi 11_Platform 5: Exhibition – Bhattacharya, “Beyond Lean-In: Catalogue, eds. Okwui Enwezor For a Feminism of the 99% and a et al. (Hatje Kantz, 2011), 45. Militant International Strike on “Today’s avant-garde is so March 8,” Viewpoint Magazine, thoroughly displined and February 3, 2017 domesticated within the scheme https://www.viewpointmag.com of Empire that a whole different /2017/02/03/beyond-lean-in-f set of regulatory and resistance or-a-feminism-of-the-99-and- models has to be found to a-militant-international-str ike- counterbalance Empire’s on-march-8/. attempt at totalization,” notes Enwezor. đđđđđđ11 Indicatively, see Julia Bryan đđđđđđ5 Wilson, Art Workers: Radical Boris Groys, “On Art Activism,” e- Practice in the Vietnam Era flux journal 56 (June 2014) (University of California Press, http://www.e-flux.com/journa 2009); Art Workers: Material l/56/60343/on-art-activism/. Conditions and Labor Struggles Emphasis added. in Contemporary Art Practice, eds. Erik Krikortz, Airi Triisberg, đđđđđđ6 and Minna Henriksson (2015); Groys, “On Art Activism.” Angela Dimitrakaki, “What Is an Art Worker? Five Theses on the đđđđđđ7 Complexity of a Struggle,” in Groys, “On Art Activism.” Former West: Art and the Contemporary after 1989, eds. đđđđđđ8 Maria Hlavajova and Simon These debates included, for Sheikh (BAK and MIT Press, example, if and how the 2016). figurative sign “woman” should be featured in artworks; whether đđđđđđ12

e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c femininity was to be recuperated Andrea Fraser, “How to Provide as an essence suppressed in an Artistic Service: An patriarchy or whether it was Introduction” (1994) wholly constructed in the latter http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/w (and so could not be ww/fraser1.pdf. “decolonized”); if feminists should be engaged with painting đđđđđđ13 at all as the flagship practice of Indicatively, see the special patriarchal art or if newer issue of Open! on the theme “A practices and media such as Precarious Existence” (no. 17, performance and video should 2009); Are You Working Too be prioritized. Indicatively, see Much? Post-Fordism, Precarity, Framing Feminism: Art and the and the Labor of Art, eds. Julieta

07.09.18 / 06:18:32 EDT Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, and human capital to drive economic ok-at-the-numbers. of BP, all of them negative. See Anton Vidokle (Sternberg Press, growth,” The World Bank, http://www.multinationalmoni 2011); The Art Factory, eds. October 20, 2017 đđđđđđ26 tor.org/. Michal Kozlowski, Jan Sowa, and http://www.worldbank.org/en/ Silvia Federici, “Foreword,” in Kuba Szreder, Free/Slow news/feature/2017/10/20/coun Precarious Workers Brigade, đđđđđđ33 University, Warsaw, 2014. tries-commit-to-strong-actio n- Training for Exploitation? See Julie Gorecki, “How Did This on-human-capital-to-drive- Politicising Employability and Happen? Capitalism’s Double đđđđđđ14 economic-growth, where the Reclaiming Education (Journal of Subordination of Women and Angela Dimitrakaki, “Curatorial Netherlands’ Minister of Foreign Aesthetics & Protest, 2017), 3. Nature,” The Feminist Wire, May Collectives and Feminist Politics Trade and Development Lilianne 1, 2015 in 21st Century Europe: An Ploumen stated: “The đđđđđđ27 http://www.thefeministwire.c

Interview with Kuratorisk Netherlands will continue to be 16/17 A very useful database of om/2015/05/how-did-this-happ Aktion,” 2010 committed to women’s sexual feminist exhibitions is provided en-capitalisms-double-subord http://www.publik.dk/img/tek and reproductive health, without by n.paradoxa: international ination-of-women-and-nature/ . ster%20RR/Kuratorisk%20Aktio which human capital cannot be feminist journal at n%20interview.pdf. built.” https://www.ktpress.co.uk/fe đđđđđđ34 minist-art-exhibitions.asp. Joanna Walters, “Artist Nan đđđđđđ15 đđđđđđ21 Goldin Stages Opioids Protest at See CAMP’s website On feminism’s relationship to đđđđđđ28 Metropolitian Museum’s Sackler http://campcph.org/about-cam capitalism in the late twentieth Indicatively, see n.paradoxa: Wing,” The Guardian, March 11, p/. century, see indicatively Hester international feminist journal 18 2018 Eisenstein, Feminism Seduced: (July 2006), a special issue on https://www.theguardian.com/ đđđđđđ16 How Global Elites Use Women's curatorial strategies; Feminism us-news/2018/mar/10/opioids- Some of the issues are Labor and Ideas to Exploit the Reframed: Reflections on Art and nan-goldin-protest-metropoli addressed by Lucy R. Lippard in World (Paradigm, 2009); Nancy Difference, ed. Alexandra Kokoli tan-museum-sackler-wing. her essay “The Anatomy of an Fraser, “Feminism, Capitalism (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Annual,” in Hayward Annual ’78, and the Cunning of History,” New 2008); Feminisms Is still Our đđđđđđ35 Exhibition Catalogue (Arts Left Review 56 (March–April Name: Seven Essays on Liberal critics focused on the Council of Great Britain, 1978). 2009): 97–117; and, largely Historiography and Curatorial unethical marketing of a highly The essay was reprinted in focused on “the Practices, eds. Malin Hedlin addictive medicine rather than Politics in a Glass Case: institutionalization of the US Haydn and Jessica Sjohol the human hell created by the Feminism, Exhibition Cultures women’s movement” but also Skrubbe (Cambridge Scholars for-profit pharmaceutical and Curatorial Transgressions, the neoliberal ties of “global Publishing, 2010); Dimitrakaki industry, and so it was possible eds. Angela Dimitrakaki and Lara feminism,” Susan Watkins, and Perry (eds.), Politics in a to defend Elizabeth Sackler as Perry (Liverpool University Press, “Which Feminisms?” New Left Glass Case. an individual. See Natalie Frank, 2013). Review 108 (January–February “In the Discussion About the 2018): 5–76. đđđđđđ29 Sacklers and Oxycontin, It’s đđđđđđ17 See the “Thin Black Line(s)” Important to Get the Facts See Angela Dimitrakaki, “What Is đđđđđđ22 exhibition catalogue available at Right,” Artnet News, January 22, It that Feminism Is up against? This marginalization was http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/5106 2018 Preliminary Notes on concurrent with the dominance /22/thinblacklinesbook.pdf. See https://news.artnet.com/opin Separatism,” paper presented at of postmodernism as the also Julia Halperin, “Turner ion/discussion-sacklers-oxyc a panel discussion among hegemonic cultural discourse in Prize-Winner Lubaina Himid Is a ontin-facts-elizabeth-a-sack Catherine Elwes, Margaret the last quarter of the twentieth Star at Art Basel – and She’s ler-1203458. Harrison, Johanna Gustavsson, century and was to an extent Getting a Solo Show at the New and the author as part of Women retracted from the mid-1990s Museum,” Artnet News, June 12, đđđđđđ36 Working Collectively, What Is onwards when “globalization” 2018 Christy Lange, “7th Berlin Your Value?, organized by The emerged as a critical term in the https://news.artnet.com/mark Biennial,” Frieze, June 1, 2012 Temporary Separatists at ICA analysis of art and beyond. See et/lubaina-himid-oldest-turn er- https://frieze.com/article/7 th- London, July 9, 2015. The paper Angela Dimitrakaki and Kirsten prize-market-takeoff-1301 645. berlin-biennale. can be accessed at Lloyd, “‘The Last Instance’: The Himid is referred to in the article https://www.academia.edu/234 Apparent Economy, Social as the first black woman and the đđđđđđ37 25509/What_is_it_that_femini Struggles and Art in Global oldest artist to win the Turner Frank, “In the Discussion About sm_is_up_against_Preliminary Capitalism,” in Economy: Art, Prize but also as an artist who the Sacklers and Oxycontin.” _notes_on_separatism. Production and the Subject in “did not have consisent Emphasis added. the 21st Century, eds. Angela commercial representation until đđđđđđ18 Dimitrakaki and Kirsten Lloyd 2013.” Himid has been a đđđđđđ38 Irene Moss and and Lila Katzen, (Liverpool University Press, pioneering artist and curator of Kate Brown, “These Four Artists “Separatism: The New Rip-Off,” 2015). black and Asian women artists Were Nominated for Germany’s Feminist Art Journal 2, no. 2 in Britain since the 1980s; she Foremost Art Prize – and Now (1973): 7+. See also the short đđđđđđ23 organized the landmark show They’re Denouncing It,” Artnet note on this article in Linda It was striking to see a Hauser & “The Thin Black Line” at ICA News, November 10, 2017 Krumholz and Estella Lauter, Wirth London ad of a show London in 1985. https://news.artnet.com/art- “Annotated Bibliography on (March 30 – May 5, 2007) of Lee world/artists-denounce-germa Feminist Aesthetics in the Visual Lozano (1930–99), a female đđđđđđ30 n-art-prize-1145351. Arts,” Hypatia 5, no. 2 (1990): artist noted for her critical See Victoria Horne, “BP 158–72, where the assumed withdrawal from the art world, in Spotlight: Sylvia Pankhurst & đđđđđđ39 universality of aesthetics is also the first few pages of Frieze 105 Women and Work – Tate Britain, The open letter was published as mentioned as an argument (March 2007), the magazine’s 16 September 2013 – 6 April a petition on May 12, 2018 against separatism. issue dedicated to “feminism.” 2014,” Radical Philosophy 186 https://www.change.org/p/la- (July–August 2014) jeune-peinture-belge-belgian đđđđđđ19 đđđđđđ24 https://www.radicalphilosoph artprize-response-to-the-bel MFK was founded by Johanna Data concerning women’s y.com/reviews/bp-spotlight-s gianartprice-exclusionary-sh Gustavsson and Lisa Nyberg and presence in the art institution ylvia-pankhurst-women-and-wo ortlist-2019. was active between 2006 and are fragmented, incomplete, and rk. 2011. The collective’s inspiring do not correspond to a global đđđđđđ40 practice, and the contradictions picture. See, however, Maura đđđđđđ31 Sheila Rowbotham, Women, it faced, are discussed in their Reilly, “Taking the Measure of See Nadia Khomani, “BP to End Resistance and Revolution: A

manual Do the Right Thing! Sexism: Facts, Figures and e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c Tate Sponsorship after 26 Years,” History Of Women And Revolution which can be downloaded in Fixes,” ARTNEWS, June 2015, The Guardian, March 11, 2016 In The Modern World (Verso, English and Swedish at 39–46, also available online at https://www.theguardian.com/ 2004/1974), 50. Emphasis http://www.lisanyberg.net/do - http://www.maurareilly.com/p artanddesign/2016/mar/11/bp- added. the-right-thing-a-manual-fr om- df/essays/Reilly_ArtNews.pdf . to-end-tate-sponsorship-clim mfk/. I am grateful to MFK for ate-protests. đđđđđđ41 providing me with a hard copy. đđđđđđ25 Griselda Pollock, “Vision, Voice Indicatively, see Molly Casey, đđđđđđ32 and Power: Feminist Art đđđđđđ20 “Gender in the Art World, a Look BP features frequently on the Histories and Marxism,” in her Studies and projects on women at the Numbers,” Nine Dot Arts, Multinational Monitor website, Vision and Difference: as human capital abound. May 31, 2016 often as the target of anti- Femininity, Feminism and the Indicatively, see “Countries https://www.ninedotarts.com/ Apartheid activists. A search on Histories of Art (Routledge, commit to strong action on gender-in-the-art-world-a-lo the site brings up 119 mentions 1988), 34. The specific essay

07.09.18 / 06:18:32 EDT was first published in Block 6 mablea-permanente-de-trabaja Once They Graduate?” Bustle, (1982). doras-del-arte-nosotras-prop đđđđđđ58 May 18, 2017 onemos-we-propose- Marion von Osten, “Irene ist https://www.bustle.com/p/wom đđđđđđ42 n%C3%B3s-p ropomos. The full Viele! Or What We Call en-outnumber-men-at-art-scho Pollock, “Vision, Voice and text can now be accessed at “Productive” Forces,” e-flux ols-so-why-isnt-their-work-b Power,” 49. http://nosotrasproponemos.or journal 8 (September 2009) eing-shown-in-galleries-once - g/we-propose/. I have consulted http://www.e-flux.com/journa they-graduate-55299. đđđđđđ43 the English translation (by Jane l/08/61381/irene-ist-viele-o r- Judith Barry and Sandy Brodie) available at the site, what-we-call-productive-fo đđđđđđ64 Flitterman, “Textual Strategies: which includes thirty-eight rces/. Emphasis added. See the chapter “Travel as The Politics of Art Making,” propositions, divided into five (gendered) work: global space,

Screen 21, no. 2 (1980): 35–48. sections: Concerning the 17/17 đđđđđđ59 mobility and the ‘woman artist,’” Structure of the Art World, Mary Kelly’s Post-partum in Angela Dimitrakaki, Gender, đđđđđđ44 Concerning Behaviors in the Art Document (1973–79) and the ArtWork and the Global Griselda Pollock, “Screening the World, Concerning the Artistic collective project Feministo Imperative (Manchester Seventies,” in Vision and Career and Creativity, (1975–77) remain emblematic University Press, 2013). Difference, 151–99. Concerning Artistic Feminism works, in different ways. On the and Feminist Art History, first see Mary Kelly, Post-partum đđđđđđ65 đđđđđđ45 Concerning the Inclusive Nature Document (University of See Miwon Kwon, One Place Mark Brown, “Tracey Emin: of This Statement. California Press, 1999); on the after Another: Site-Specific Art ‘Tories are only hope for the second see Alexandra Kokoli, and Locational Identity (MIT arts,’” The Guardian, May 16, đđđđđđ51 “Undoing ‘homeliness’ in Press, 2004). 2011 Hito Steyerl, “Politics of Art: feminist art: Feministo: Portrait https://www.theguardian.com/ Contemporary Art and the of the Artist as a Housewife đđđđđđ66 culture/culture-cuts-blog/20 Transition to Post-Democracy,” (1975–7),” n.paradoxa: Henri Neuendorf, “Marina 11/may/16/art-emin. e-flux journal 21 (December international feminist art journal Abramović Says Children Hold 2010) https://www.e- 13 (2004): 75–83. See also Back Female Artists,” Artnet đđđđđđ46 flux.com/journ Andrea Liss, Feminist Art and the News, July 25, 2016 For a selective yet invaluable al/21/67696/politics-of-art- Maternal (University of https://news.artnet.com/art- documentation see Robinson contemporary-art-and-the-tra Minnesota, 2009). world/marina-abramovic-says- (ed.), Feminism-Art-Theory. nsition-to-post-democracy/. children-hold-back-female-ar đđđđđđ60 tists-575150. đđđđđđ47 đđđđđđ52 “Art is an occupation,” Steyerl On this, see Michael Denning, John Smith, Imperialism in the contends, “in that it keeps đđđđđđ67 “Wageless Life,” New Left Review Twenty-First Century: The people busy – spectators and Mariarosa Dalla Costa, 66 (November–December 2010): Globalization of Production, many others. In many rich “Women’s Autonomy and 79–97, where it is stated: “We Super-Exploitation, and the countries art denotes a quite Remuneration for Care Work in must insist that ‘proletarian’ is Crisis of Capitalism (Monthly popular occupational scheme. the New Emergencies,” not a synonym for ‘wage laborer’ Review Press, 2016). The idea that it contains its own November 2010 but for dispossession, gratification and needs no https://caringlabor.wordpres expropriation and radical đđđđđđ53 remuneration is quite accepted s.com/2010/11/10/mariarosa-d dependence on the market. You Relevant data is available on in the cultural workplace … alla-costa- don’t need a job to be a many sites, including the World Additionally, there are now women%E2%80%99s-a proletarian: wageless life, not Bank and ILO. For a quick occupational schemes in the utonomy-and-remuneration-for wage labor, is the starting point overview see Esteban Ortiz- guise of art education.” See Hito -care-work-in-the-new-emerge in understanding the free Ospina and Sandra Tzvetkova, Steyerl, “Art as Occupation: ncies/. market” (81). “Working women: Key facts and Claims for an Autonomy of Life,” trends in female labor force e-flux journal 30 (December đđđđđđ68 đđđđđđ48 participation,” Our World in Data, 2011) https://www.e- See the chapter “The Gender The articles comprising October 16, 2017 flux.com/journ al/30/68140/art- Issue: Lessons from Post- Luxemburg’s Reform or https://ourworldindata.org/f as-occupatio n-claims-for-an- socialist Europe” in Dimitrakaki, Revolution were first published emale-labor-force-participat autonomy-of- life/. Regarding Gender, ArtWork and the Global together in 1900 and, in revised ion-key-facts. The blog is part of the relationship of domestic Imperative, 2013. edition, in 1908. Here I have the Oxford Martin Programme on space to art, research has used the 1900 version available Global Development at the revealed that the home was đđđđđđ69 at the Rosa Luxemburg Internet University of Oxford. significantly present in the Jerry Saltz, “Super Theory Archive, transl. Integer professional activities of artists Woman,” Artnet Magazine, July https://www.marxists.org/arc đđđđđđ54 in the nineteenth century too, 2004 hive/luxemburg/1900/reform-r Tithi Bhattacharya, “How Not to inviting us to pay closer http://www.artnet.com/Magazi evolution/. See also The Skip Class: Social Reproduction attention to possibly hidden yet ne/features/jsaltz/saltz7-8- Essential Rosa Luxemburg, ed. of Labor and the Global Working lasting trends shaping art in 04.asp. Helen Scott (Haymarket, 2008). Class,” Viewpoint Magazine 5 capitalism in gendered terms. (2015) On this, see Lara Perry, “The đđđđđđ70 đđđđđđ49 https://www.viewpointmag.com Artist’s Household: On Gender On May 25, 2018, Ireland’s “The question of how art is /2015/10/31/how-not-to-skip- and the Division of Artistic and abortion referendum achieved a recognized as feminist – and the class-social-reproduction-of - Domestic Labor in Nineteenth- breakthrough in ending the potential of misrecognizing labor-and-the-global-workin g- Century London,” Third Text 31, abortion ban. feminism – requires class/. no. 1 (2017): 15–29. acknowledging the multiples axes of transnational and queer đđđđđđ55 đđđđđđ61 feminism today, as such feminist See in particular “Introduction: See the detailed project projects intersect issues of war, The Problem with Work” in Kathi description and outputs at law, immigration, human rights, Weeks, The Problem with Work: http://www.manuallabors.co.u antiracist, economic, urban and Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork k/about/. rural justice projects, propelled Politics, and Postwork towards uncoercive Imaginaries (Duke University đđđđđđ62 rearrangements of masculinity Press, 2011). The division of labor among and femininity beyond the limits women (rather than between

of woman, as a project of đđđđđđ56 e - f l u x j o r n a # 9 2 — 0 1 8 đ A g D i m t k F e m i n s , A r t C o a d c women and men) is, as one decolonizing feminism.” See Weeks, The Problem with Work, might surmise, typically, if not Jeannine Tang, “The Problem of 7. exclusively, instituted as a racial Equality, or Translating ‘Woman’ and class divide. in the Age of Global Exhibitions,” đđđđđđ57 in Dimitrakaki and Perry (eds.), On how the art field inscribes đđđđđđ63 Politics in a Glass Case, 253. the “labor of love” ideology, see See Gregory Sholette, Dark Danielle Childs, Helena Reckitt, Matter: Art and Politics in the đđđđđđ50 and Jenny Richards, “Labors of Age of Enterprise Culture (Pluto, The declaration started on Love: A Conversation on Art, 2010). See also Farah Joan Fard, November 7, 2017 as a petition Gender and Social “Women Outnumber Men At Art (now closed) here Reproduction,” Third Text 31, no. Schools – So Why Isn’t Their https://www.change.org/p/asa 1 (2017): 147–68. Work Being Shown In Galleries

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