THE FEMINIST AVANT-GARDE AND FEMINAISSANCE IN AMERICAN POETRY AND THE VISUAL ARTS

Abstract

In this article, I will discuss the appearance and meaning of the terms feminist avant/garde and feminaissance. I will point to the differences in the mediums of these two fields of cultural production (verbal art and visual art). I am interested in the way these terms help us to construe histories but also impact the contemporary production of radical feminist practices. The notion of the feminist avant-garde was introduced by the American critic Elizabeth A. Frost in 2003 in order to point to the feminist avant-garde poetry tradition. In 2016, the curator Gabrielle Schor introduced the same term, using it for the international exhibition of performance artists from the 1970s. In both fields, the term avant-garde had been used to refer to male artistic and poetry practices. By applying it to radical women’s poetry and performance practices, these practices became visible, valued and recognizable. Feminaissance was introduced in the US in 2007 and referred to the several exhibitions dedicated to female art. The term expressed the optimistic re-actualization of female art, but at the same time, it provoked polemics regarding the contemporary construction of feminist art history. In the field of experimental poetry, feminaissance was used with the same meaning in 2007, at a conference dedicated to feminist experimentation. Within the visual arts, the term feminaissance foregrounded the problematics of the historization of female art, while in experimental poetry this discussion took place around the feminist positions of essentialism and anti-essentialism.