From Library Journal
Featuring over 100 splendid color plates and duotones and almost 20 essays by scholars from different cultural backgrounds, this is the first survey of women artists in post-World War II California and their impact on contemporary culture. Both comprehensive in scope and groundbreaking in subject matter, the essays and images fully express the diversity of current California culture. The book accompanies an exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art, which initiated this project as a strategy to redress mainstream art history's neglect of women artists and their work. Divided into two sections, "Parallels" and "Intersections," the essays explore art, history, and politics and how they fuse to inform artistic expression while also examining the changes in postwar society and their effects on art. "Parallels," which also includes poems by Audre Lorde and others, examines how artists are influenced by their separate experiences within a California context, while "Intersections" identifies artistic trends and practices within this group. Among the notable contributors are Whitney Chadwick and Angela Y. Davis. Recommended for academic libraries with collections in women or California artists and for larger public libraries.
Rebecca Tolley-Stokes, East Tennessee State Univ. Lib., Johnson City
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Rebecca Tolley-Stokes, East Tennessee State Univ. Lib., Johnson City
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Booklist
The far-reaching scope of this study finds its roots in an earlier symposium, and the resulting book retraces a half-century of art produced by women in California, seamlessly linking critical understanding with social analysis in essays by art historians and scholars from diverse disciplines and cultures. During the years 1950 to 2000, art by women in the Golden State manifested concerns coursing through the Western world. Ethnic backgrounds and their impact are looked at in the book's first section, while the second part examines points where kindred themes coincide. The effects of feminism, technological breakthroughs, and political as well as societal upheavals are reflected in thought-provoking commentary and accompanying reproductions of compelling paintings, prints, and murals; photographs and stills from video and film; and documentation of performances, conceptual art, and new media. But the overriding quality captured here is an exhilarating individuality and the artistic intensity that motivates Betye Saar to create her mixed media assemblages, Ann Hamilton to conjure her complex installations, and Judy Chicago to realize her much photographed Dinner Party. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
