Kivimaa, K (2012). Re-thinking art history: feminist art writing in post-Soviet Estonia. The History of Art History in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, Torun, 14-16 Sep 2010. Ed. Jerzy Malinowski et al. Torun, 2012, 255 - 260. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Introducing Sexual Difference into Estonian Art Feminist Tendencies during the 1990s
n.paradoxa online issue, 2001
When talking about art of the 1990s we cannot overlook the phenomenon designated by the umbrella term Estonian (post)feminist art. Social art history has demonstrated how art does not only represent social relationships and the dominant ideas of its era but is always dependent on major categories of identity formation such as class, gender, race, and others. As artistic representation does not merely reflect but always produces and reproduces these categories, sexual difference has, among other places, been constructed and perpetuated in the visual arts. Traditional art history defined certain forms and genres, i.e. the hierarchically " lower arts " , which allegedly did not require artistic " genius " , as " feminine " and therefore as the more appropriate fields for women artists. In his article 'Form and Gender', David Summers presents a historical review of how the ideas of form and matter have been gendered in philosophy and consequently how this has influenced the hierarchical order within the visual arts. He argues that the Aristotelian idea of form, which is perceived as masculine, has been one of the major reasons for the exclusion of women from art history. 1 How similar understandings of " lower " (feminine) and " higher " (masculine) art still tend to influence the hierarchy and interpretations of art becomes clear if we look, for instance, at the undervalued position of applied arts. Even though modernism seemed to offer artists more freedom and autonomy, for women artists this meant the denial of their gender identity whereas the whole history of modernist art can be interpreted as the glorification of male creativity and sexuality. 2 The position of Estonian women artists has been dependent on both standpoints: certain assumptions inherent to the understanding of art and artistic
institutions showing a particular interest in the early feminist practices of women artists from this region. Are Eastern European feminist conceptual practices "returning" to the Western map as just another commodified art practice within late capitalism or is the introduction of an Eastern European artist here and there into major overview exhibitions simply a way of fulfilling a quota of political correctness? Will such an approach contribute to the absorption of Eastern European practices and narratives of art history into the "big narrative of twentieth century Western art history"? Where, in your opinion, is this impulse coming from? What is the role played by "nostalgia" in this and how has this retroactive "historicisation" influenced a general perception of early feminist practices?
an unfinished revolution in art historiography, or how to write a feminist art history
Feminist Review 107 (July/Aug 2014)
The question implied in our title is more a clarion call, an open-ended research enquiry that we have begun thinking about through a series of informal research events. The first workshop, organised by Victoria Horne at the University of Edinburgh, brought together postgraduate and early-career researchers to meet and discuss the epistemological questions raised when 'Writing Feminist Art Histories'. In response to a productive session that touched upon a range of historical and contemporary historiographical concerns, in May 2013, Kuang Vivian Sheng, Catherine Spencer, Kostas Stasinopoulos and Amy Tobin arranged a second event at the University of York. One of the primary aims of these workshops was to reflect upon the merits and obstacles endemic to writing history from a feminist perspective. However, equally important is the potential that these events offer for developing a supportive and critical network of feminist researchers through a series of loosely connected episodes.