scholarly journals Black Gold: A Black Feminist Art History of 1920s Montréal

2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-291
Author(s):  
Joana Joachim
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Art History ◽  
Feminist Art ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
African American Art ◽  
Art Objects ◽  
Canadian Art ◽  
Black Canadian ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Art History

The 1920s have been touted as the golden era of jazz and Black history in Montréal. Similarly, the decade is well known for the Harlem Renaissance, a key moment in African American art history. Yet this period in Black Canadian art histories remains largely unknown. As a first step toward shedding some light on this period in Black Canadian art history, I propose to use what I term a Black feminist art-historical (bfah) praxis to discuss some visual art practices undoubtedly active alongside well-known jazz musicians and cultural producers in 1920s Montréal. This paper presents an overview of critical race art history and feminist art history, as well as Black feminist approaches to visual representation, to outline what might be considered four tenets of bfah praxis. Applying these tenets, I propose that a new art history may emerge from well-known art objects and practices as well as lesser-known ones. I posit that through a deliberately bfah approach, new meanings emerge and the voices of Black women, even when obstructed by mainstream white narratives, may begin to stand out and shed light upon a variety of histories. This praxis aims to underline the subtext lurking at the edges of these images and to make intangible presences visible in the archive and in art history. I propose bfah as a strategy for more nuanced discussion of the work of Black Canadian artists and histories that have by and large been left out of official records.

scholarly journals Memeification of Black Women’s Trauma

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Stravens
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
The People ◽  
Online Spaces ◽  
History Of

This piece discusses the online and offline discourses on the lives and bodies of Black femme and nonbinary individuals and the harm that is so casually inflicted upon us. Through popular stories of harm performed around famous Black women, such as with rapper Megan Thee Stallion, I connect the history of Black women in popular culture to current online spaces that continue to minimize and trivialize our trauma. I seek to highlight that these stories are not an anomaly, but rather sentiments rooted in the misogynoir that is so entrenched in western culture and have been expanded and weaponized within the online sphere. In addition, the piece challenges the universality of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in its implementation, criticizing its propensity to forget its feminine victims. It is important to emphasize where it has failed and where it needs to be intentional about the people it has overlooked, as this is a movement that began online, where this harm is currently taking place, and at the hands and energies of Black femmes, the very people getting hurt. This piece has manifested from many conversations already occurring in online Black feminist spaces about our treatment and our needs. It invites others into the fold and seeks to encourage individuals to critically reflect on how Black femme and non-binary individuals are presented on their timeline in-between the numerous BLM posts that claim to protect them.

The “Batty” Politic: Toward an Aesthetic of the Black Female Body

Hypatia ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Janell Hobson
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Women Artists ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Black Female ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Disability Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
Feminist Disability Theory

I assess representations of black women's derrieres, which are often depicted as grotesque, despite attempts by some black women artists to create a black feminist aesthetic that recognizes the black female body as beautiful and desirable. Utilizing a black feminist disability theory, I revisit the history of the Hottentot Venus, which contributed to the shaping of this representational trope, and I identify a recurring struggle among these artists to recover the “unmirrored” black female body.

Incorporating intersectional musicality within the classroom: Black feminism through Nina Simone and Janelle Monáe

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmine Hines
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Social Justice Advocacy ◽  
Black Feminists ◽  
Dominant Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
Education And Society ◽  
Nina Simone

In an age of social justice advocacy within education, the work of Black women continues to be excluded from the hegemonic educational canon despite the long history of Black feminists advocating for the eradication of systemic oppressive systems in education. By examining the livelihoods and music created by Black feminist musicians, music educators may begin to reflect on how Black women’s positionality within society has had a direct influence on the music they created within a White culturally dominant society. The purpose of this article is to conceptualize how the intersectional musicality of Nina Simone and Janelle Monáe – informed by the conceptual framework of Black Feminist Thought – can speak to the experiences that Black girls and women face within music education and society.

scholarly journals Inhabiting the threshold: the Women's Gallery as liminal space in New Zealand's feminist art history

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kirsty Baker
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Art History ◽  
Feminist Art ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Liminal Space ◽  
Women's Art ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Patriarchal Power

<p>In the four years between January 1980 and January 1984, a gallery was run in Wellington by a collective of women to display the work of female artists only. This feminist space sought to provide an educational, supportive and inclusive environment, free from the obstacles which were perceived to prohibit women from displaying their work in mainstream art spaces. This thesis tackles the history of this gallery’s reception and seeks to address its absence in the writing of New Zealand’s art history. In reassessing its history, I assert the Women’s Gallery deserves a place within critical accounts of art in New Zealand.  Chapter one locates the Women’s Gallery within the cultural and political context of New Zealand society by tracing the development of the women’s art movement, and feminism as a grassroots political movement. An examination of the gallery’s Opening Show serves as an example of the way in which the ideology of the Women’s Gallery shaped its organisational structure.  Chapter two pinpoints the time of the gallery’s existence at a point of transformation within feminist thinking. This chapter problematises the evolution of feminist thought from ‘essentialism’ to a critique informed by poststructuralist strategies. A close analysis of artworks demonstrates that the Women’s Gallery was simultaneously occupied by artists who exhibited both tendencies.  By proposing Victor Turner’s model of liminality as a framework upon which to base a discussion of the Women’s Gallery, chapter three reframes the gallery as a liminal space. I argue the temporary existence of the gallery allowed women a space – removed from patriarchal power structures – in which to experiment both politically and creatively.</p>

Intersectionality

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brittney Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Analytic Framework ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, the term intersectionality has become the key analytic framework through which feminist scholars in various fields talk about the structural identities of race, class, gender, and sexuality. This chapter situates intersectionality within a long history of black feminist theorizing about interlocking systems of power and oppression, arguing that intersectionality is not an account of personal identity but one of power. It challenges feminist theorists, including Robyn Wiegman, Jennifer Nash, and Jasbir Puar, who have attempted to move past intersectionality because of its limitations in fully attending to the contours of identity. The chapter also maps conversations within the social sciences about intersectionality as a research methodology. Finally, it considers what it means for black women to retain paradigmatic status within intersectionality studies, whether doing so is essentialist, and therefore problematic, or whether attempts to move “beyond” black women constitute attempts at erasure and displacement.

Documenting Latin American art at the Museum of Modern Art Library

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-36
Author(s):  
Taína Caragol
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Art History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
American Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Latin American Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Geopolitical Region ◽  
Art Community ◽  
American Art History

This article traces the history of the Latin American holdings of the Museum of Modern Art Library, one of the first institutions outside Latin America to start documenting the art of this geopolitical region, and one of the best research centers on modern Latin American art in the world. This success story dates back to the thirties, when the Museum Library began building a Latin American and Caribbean collection that currently comprises over 15,000 volumes of catalogues and art books. The launch of various research tools and facilities for scholars and the general public in recent years also shows the Museum’s strong commitment not only towards Latin American art history but also to the present and the future of the Latino art community.

scholarly journals Using Georges Bataille in Art History: Informe, Figuration and Politics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Shane Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
American Art ◽  
Georges Bataille ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
Inner Experience ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Art History ◽  
Late Works

<p>The theories of the French intellectual Georges Bataille have had a significant influence on much recent arts practice and criticism. Bataille’s later work (c.1937–1962), however, is often overlooked in cultural practice and theory. In this later period his thought becomes richer; no less transgressive, no less excessive, and indubitably more philosophical. This thesis will argue the importance of using the chronological range of Bataille’s writing. In particular, it will redress the critical neglect in art history of his later work. The selective use of Bataille’s early work, especially the informe, in the American art history of Rosalind Krauss will be critiqued. The thesis will deploy concepts developed extensively in two late works, Inner Experience and The Accursed Share, to discuss the practice of two visual artists that do not figure in the type of methodology that Krauss adopts; the Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon and the Swiss installation artist Thomas Hirschhorn. Inner Experience, a work revolving around the theme of ‘limit-experience’, will be the catalyst in an analysis of the works of Francis Bacon. This thesis will demonstrate that although Bacon was an avowed atheist, he ventures to capture a sacred and impossible moment in his painting that parallels the “movement of contestation” in “inner experience.” The conception of economy developed in The Accursed Share derives from the germ of Bataille’s economic theory, first outlined in the 1933 essay “The Notion of Expenditure.” Thomas Hirschhorn’s practice and his desire to “work politically” will be examined from the perspective of Bataillean expenditure and the notion of general economy.</p>

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