Art criticism and the state of feminist art criticism

Article

Deepwell, K. 2020. Art criticism and the state of feminist art criticism. Arts. 9 (1). https://doi.org/10.3390/arts9010028
TypeArticle
TitleArt criticism and the state of feminist art criticism
AuthorsDeepwell, K.
Abstract

This essay is in four parts. The first offers a critique of James Elkins and Michael Newman’s book The State of Art Criticism (Routledge, 2008) for what it tells us about art criticism in academia and journalism and feminism; the second considers how a gendered analysis measures the “state” of art and art criticism as a feminist intervention; and the third, how neo-liberal mis-readings of Linda Nochlin and Laura Mulvey in the art world represent feminism in ideas about “greatness” and the “gaze”, whilst avoiding feminist arguments about women artists or their work, particularly on “motherhood”. In the fourth part, against the limits of the first three, the state of feminist art criticism across the last fifty years is reconsidered by highlighting the plurality of feminisms in transnational, transgenerational and progressive alliances.

Keywordsfeminism; feminist art criticism; feminist art; art criticism
Research GroupCREATE/Feminisms cluster
PublisherMDPI
JournalArts
ISSN
Electronic2076-0752
Publication dates
Online25 Feb 2020
PrintMar 2020
Publication process dates
Deposited25 Nov 2019
Accepted20 Feb 2020
Submitted25 Nov 2019
Output statusPublished
Publisher's version
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Copyright Statement

© 2020 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

Additional information

This article belongs to the Special Issue Reconsidering the State(s) of Criticism.
This special issue belongs to the section "Visual Arts".

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.3390/arts9010028
Web of Science identifierWOS:000525038000019
LanguageEnglish
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