Art after feminism. Towards a post-feminist historiography of contemporary art

Monographic course coordinated by Beatriz Preciado

Contemporary feminist and queer theories have proposed a performative definition of identity which underlines the socially and politically constructed character of the sexes, genders and sexuality, criticising the autonomous and universalist conception of representation and unmasking the power structures which make it possible. Beginning with a revision of the recent exhibitions of feminist art and taking a sceptical viewpoint of the dominant identity-based and naturalist definition, the course proposes a relational definition of queer feminism whose objective is the transformation of art as a cultural and political practice of subjective production.

Based on the critical texts of Faith Wilding, Griselda Pollock, Lucy R. Lippard, Laura Mulvey, Linda Nochlin, Laura Cottingham, Judith Butler, Eve K. Sedgwick, Michael Warner, Judith Halberstam and Douglas Crimp we will study:

feminist groups' critiques of art pedagogy and art exhibiting institutions from 1970 to the present;

the creation of networks and spaces for action and alternative speech;

the emergence of "feminist historiography";

the priority of performance and video as production strategies of political subjectivity and intervention in public space;

the fragmentation of the "woman" subject based on queer, transgender and postcolonial critiques;

the permeability of the critical strategies of feminism and of the queer movements in contemporary artistic practices which are not perceived as explicitly feminist.

With the participation of the Education Sciences Institute (ICE) and the University of Barcelona (UB). Participants attending a minimum of 3 sessions may request an attendance certificate expedited by the ICE of the UB.