"!Women Art Revolution" Documentary

     For a new change, I thought I would check out the !Women Art Revolution Documentary. I read the description for this, and it seemed really interesting. With that in mind, I was really excited to check this out.

     This film is meant to discuss the history of the Feminist Art Movement and how it came into fruition. I could go into detail to the precise history that the film discusses, but I feel that it is vital to discuss the central question that this film addresses: why was this important? The film discusses a few different factors. For instance, at the time of its emergence in the late 1960s, America was going through drastic changes of its own. Keep in mind that the Civil Rights Movement was taking place, along with the Vietnam War efforts, to which Women's Liberation movements were being side-lined.  Thus, Art and Politics were coming together in order to help people understand, articulate, and convey their feelings towards the changes taking place. However, Minimalism was the prevailing art movement at that point, which is essentially "devoid" of meaning and thrives within its sheer simplicity of form and space. Art needed to create new meaning, and Feminist Art would be one answer. Yet Feminist Art was different from the "traditional" artworks showcased in the museums, let alone what was being taught in art schools. As such, artwork created by female artists weren't being accounted for, as not only the work they were creating was so different from the "norm" of how art should be created and presented, but it was a matter of the artist not fitting the "mold" of  how a "real" artist should be (a man). Judy Chicago, the creator of the first Women's Art Program, even states "There were almost no women artists who are visible at all." Thus, women artists weren't being recognized by the artwork they were creating nor their looks alone, which lead to their (and their works) utter anonymity in art history books and records. The best way one could know about them would be through whatever information was passed down from generation to generation. 

     Interestingly, the film begins by interviewing people off-the-street if they know three female artists, to which all of them either only knew of one or none at all. I sat and thought about it, but it took me longer than a few seconds to think of three names. However, if the question were to be to name three male artists, I could easily mention the likes of "Van Gogh," "Leonardo De Vinci," "Goya," the list goes on. What is worse is that the names of female artists that I contemplated came to me simply because I studied them within the last year. If I were asked this question prior, I would have been increasingly perplexed. This simple idea is why this film must exist, because we don't know this history. Although society today is making great progress in recognizing more artists that weren't given the right credit years ago, especially female artists. The trouble is if any of us are still getting easily perplexed by something as simple as coming up with the name of three female artists, there is still progress that needs to be done. I cannot say that female artists are still being side-lined as they were in the past. If anything, there more appreciated than ever before. And I also cannot say that I (an artist myself) is being side-lined by other artists that are different than me, because I honestly have never been in that kind of experience. I can say that despite our progress (which is great), we still have more that needs to be done. We now live in a world that is learning to value differences no matter how great, and understanding how those differences are not just great but unique and something to celebrate. We are learning to understand others experiences and stand by them for support, and that is indeed great progress. I am proud that I am a part of a great history that continues to span, and will be something that future generations of young women will look back on with pride and strength. We still do have a ways to go, but as art historian Marcia Tucker said: 

"Every woman's success is all of our success."

* This film was 1 hour, 22 minutes and 54 seconds long.*