Renegotiating the Body

What makes art 'feminist art'? There can be no essential feminist aesthetic, argues Kathy Battista in this exciting new art history, although feminist artists do have a unique aesthetic. Domesticity, the body, its traces, and sexuality have become prominent strands in contemporary feminist practice but where did these preoccupations begin and how did they come to signify a particular type of art? Kathy Battista's (re- ) engagement with the founding generation of female practitioners centres on 1970s London as the cultural hub from which a new art practice arose. Emphasizing the importance of artists including Bobby Baker, Anne Bean, Catherine Elwes, Rose English, Alexis Hunter, Hannah O'Shea and Kate Walker, and examining works such as Mary Kelly's "Post-Partum Document", Judy Clark's 1973 exhibition Issues and Cosey Fanni Tutti's "Prostitution", shown in 1976, Kathy Battista investigates some of the most controversial and provocative art from the era.