Styles & Movements

Feminism

Like the multicultural and cultural pluralism movements, feminism addresses the institutional exclusion of the art forms and political concerns of a disenfranchised group—in this case, women. Although women artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson, and Joan Mitchell began having art world success in the 1950s, in the 1960s a new group of women artists began making work which pointedly referenced the long-standing exclusion of women from the art world. Very few works by women were included in most museums and art history texts were notable for not mentioning any women artists at all. In addition, certain ways of art-making—such as anything which involved sewing or fiber—were considered "craft," not art.

During the 80s, women artists began to use their work to explore images of women in the media and injustices against women in the world at large. Women artists in the 80s who explored this subject matter (though not exclusively) include Nancy Dwyer, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Nancy Spero, and others.