Feminist Avant-Garde Art in Germany and Beyond (1968-2019)

In "Woman's Art: A Manifesto" (1972), the artist, performer and filmmaker Valie Export (1940) proposed the transfer of women's experience into an art context and considered the body "a signal bearer of meaning and communication." In reconceptualizing and displaying "the" body (her body) as an aesthetic sign, Export's groundbreaking work paves the way towards questioning the concepts of a "female aesthetic" and a "male gaze" (L. Mulvey). Beginning with Export, we will discuss art informed by and coalescing with feminism(s): the recent revival of the 1970s in all-women group shows, the dialectic of feminist revolution, the breakdown of stable identities and their representations, point(s) of absorption of commodified femininities. Particular attention will be paid to German-language theory and its medial transfer into art works. For students of German Studies, readings and discussions in German are possible. Online discussions will be organized with contemporary artists and curators. Emphasis will be on: the relationship between (female?) aesthetics and (gender) politics, between private and public spheres, between housework and artwork; conceptions of identity (crises) and corporeality in visual culture and mass media; categories of the artist´s self in relation to the use of media (video, photography, film, collage, installation art). This course will be taught by Professor Elena Zanichelli, a Berlin-based art historian, critic, and curator. She is junior professor for Art History and Aesthetic Theory at IKFK (Institute for Art History - Film History - Art Education) at the University of Bremen.