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Women in Revolt! Two Decades of British Feminist Art at Tate Britain
On International Women’s Day, it’s more important than ever to express gratitude to those who have contributed to shaping a world of equal rights and opportunities for women. In today’s article, we’ll delve deeper into the history of the women’s rights movement, emphasising the significant role of art as a means of protest in the journey towards women’s liberation, and talk about an exhibition Women in Revolt!, exploring the history of British feminist art.
During the 1960s-1980s, feminist activism exploded worldwide, forever changing our society by broadening the rights and opportunities available to women. The women’s rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s is recognized as part of the “second wave” of feminism: while the first wave of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women’s legal rights, particularly the right to vote, second-wave feminism addressed every aspect of women’s experience, including politics, work, the family, and sexuality.
In the 1970s and 1980s, feminist art helped fuel women’s liberation. During a period of significant social, economic, and political change, women used their life experiences to create art, from painting and photography to film and performance, to fight against injustice, including reproductive rights, equal pay, and race equality.
The ongoing exhibition “Women in Revolt!” at Tate Britain, exploring feminist art, activism, and the women’s movement from 1970 to 1990 in the UK, showcases how female creativity helped shape a period of pivotal change for women in Britain, including the opening of the first women’s refuge and the formation of the British Black Arts Movement.
Taking the 1970 National Women’s Liberation Conference as its starting point, the exhibition “Women in Revolt!” presents two decades of art and the women’s movement in the UK, exploring the relationships between them. It brings together over 100 female artists who created art about their lives and the inequalities they faced, using creativity as a means of provocation and protest. Some of these artists were often left out of the artistic narratives of the time; that’s why “Women in Revolt!” presents a one-of-a-kind exhibition where many of their works are on display for the first time since the 1970s.
The exhibition shines a spotlight on how networks of women used radical ideas and rebellious methods to make an invaluable contribution to British culture. The show’s core theme revolves around protests led by women. Banners, posters, and journals from protests such as Greenham Common and Section 28, as well as anti-racism and AIDS campaigns, are complemented by documentary photography from Format Photography Agency, Mumtaz Karimjee, Bhajan Hunjan, and Caroline Coon, reaffirming women’s pivotal role in these movements. A sculpture by Margaret Harrison, referencing the fences of Greenham Common, is installed alongside protest banners created by Thalia Campbell.
Next to the works by known artists like Lubaina Himid, Sutapa Biswas, Claudette Johnson, Pratibha Parmar, Joy Gregory, and Rita Keegan, were pieces that were specially conserved for the exhibition, such as Nina Edge’s “Snakes and Ladders” from 1985 — an installation crafted from batik, an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing, on paper and ceramics.
Female artists often used alternative materials connected to the female gender, such as textiles. For example, feminist artist Ghada Amer began using needlework as her artistic medium due to its traditional association with femininity. Through her embroidery on canvas, she depicted the nude female body, liberated from the burden of patriarchal norms.
In times when many female artists struggled to exhibit their work or were compelled to work from home, the medium served both as a necessity and a message. They engaged in weaving, embroidery, knitting, and utilised slides that could be posted and projected on any scale throughout Britain. Additionally, they explored alternative mediums such as performance and video, free from the historically male-dominated precedent of painting and sculpture. Through these unconventional means of expression, women sought to broaden the boundaries of fine art and embrace a more diverse range of artistic perspectives. For instance, the recreation of Bobby Baker’s 1976 installation titled “An Edible Family in a Mobile Home” is used to make a comment about domesticity and women.
By acknowledging the actions these artists took and the relevance their art still holds, the exhibition “Women in Revolt!” hopes to give them the attention and credit they deserve. Through their powerful art, visitors will get to know some of the most powerful politically engaged communities who changed the face of British culture and paved the way for future generations of artists. The exhibition will remain on view at Tate Britain until April 7th.
