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! Women Art Revolution - A Secret History

! Women Art Revolution - A Secret History

Lynn Hershman

  • Country: USA
  • Year: 2010
  • Language: English
  • Producer: Lynn Hershman Leeson, Kyle Stephan
  • Executive Producer: Sarah Peter
  • Runtime: 83
  • Programmes:

Filmed over four decades, this inspiring cultural history tracks the struggles and breakthroughs of women artists from Judy Chicago to Guerilla Girls to Miranda July and more, packed with rare archival footage and overflowing with bold art.

Documentary,  Women,  Gender,  History,  Arts,  Architecture and Design

screening times

    • Sunday September 12
    • 12:15:00 PM
    • AMC 2
    • Tuesday September 14
    • 7:45:00 PM
    • AMC 10
    • Sunday September 19
    • 3:45:00 PM
    • AMC 7

Note: indicates Premium Screening.

official description

Today’s art world has embraced visionaries such as Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Miranda July and Shirin Neshat. But only a generation ago, it was extremely rare to find female artists in major museums and galleries. Enacting that change was nothing short of a revolution. Director Lynn Hershman was an active participant in this feminist art movement and spent the past forty years chronicling its breakthroughs on video. Now she’s shaped that archive into a remarkable cultural history that stirs up vital questions about politics, equality and freedom of expression.

Her story begins in the sixties, when the winds of liberation drew attention to gender inequality in the art world and everywhere else. The era’s radicalism prompted one Jewish art school graduate – inspired by the Black Panthers – to take the name Judy Chicago. She and Miriam Schapiro founded a women’s arts program at the California Institute of the Arts. Meanwhile, in New York, the work of women’s collective A.I.R. Publications – such as “Chrysalis” and “Heresies” – became tools for building awareness. As critic B. Ruby Rich recalls, “Everyone’s opinions counted equally. That was both wonderful and a total nightmare.” Factional in-fighting was another sign of the times.

Hershman interviews a wide number of eyewitnesses, including artists, scholars and curators who were breaking barriers. Many notable women found their voice through performance art, such as Yoko Ono, Marina Abramovic and Yvonne Rainer.

The eighties brought a new round of clashes when Judy Chicago’s epic installation The Dinner Party – with its vulva iconography – was attacked in Congress. The slow pace of change inspired a group of insurgents called the Guerilla Girls to stage witty demonstrations, under the anonymity of gorilla masks. Hershman incorporates her personal perspective and readily acknowledges the difficult choices that were made over what to leave out. Thanks to her, the revolution can now be televised.

Thom Powers

director bio

Lynn Hershman was born in Cleveland, Ohio and is Chair of the film department at the San Francisco Art Institute, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis and an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. Her films include Conceiving Ada (97), Teknolust (02), Strange Culture (07) and !Women Art Revolution (10).

full credits

Principal Cast: B. Ruby Rich, Miranda July, Judy Chicago, Guerilla Girls, Yvonne Rainer
Producer: Lynn Hershman Leeson, Kyle Stephan
Executive Producer: Sarah Peter
Cinematographer: Antonio Rossi, Hiro Narita, Fawn Yacker, Lise Sweson, Lynn Hershman Leeson
Editor: Lynn Hershman Leeson
Sound: Dan Olmsted
Music: Carrie Brownstein
Production Designer: Lynn Hershman Leeson
     
Production Company: Hotwire Productions
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