Maura Reilly

Linda Nochlin (1931-2017) was one of the most pioneering and provocative art historians of our time. In 1971 she published her groundbreaking article, 'Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?', an impassioned feminist rallying cry that called traditional art historical practices into question and led to a major revision of the discipline. Women Artists: The Linda Nochlin Reader brings together thirty essential essays from throughout Nochlin's career, including two written specially for this collection. The book opens with an interview with Nochlin, in which she looks back on her life's work and reflects on the position of women artists today. Her major thematic texts, such as 'Women Artists After the French Revolution' and 'Starting from Scratch: The Beginnings of Feminist Art History' appear alongside the landmark 1971 essay and its rejoinder, '"Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?": Thirty Years After.' Also included are entries focusing on a selection of major women artists, such as Mary Cassatt, Louise Bourgeois, Cecily Brown, Kiki Smith, Miwa Yanagi and Sophie Calle, as well as concise biographies of all the artists discussed in the book and a complete bibliography of Nochlin's publications.

Only 16% of the most recent Venice Biennale artists were female. A mere 14% of MoMA’s 2016 display is by non-white artists. Only one third of artists represented by US galleries are female, but over two-thirds of the enrolment in art and art-history programmes is young women… The fight for gender and race equality in the art world is far from over. Indeed, the more closely one examines the numbers, the more glaring it becomes that white, Euro-American, heterosexual, privileged and, above all, male artists continue to dominate the art world. Arranged in thematic sections focusing on feminism, race and sexuality, this book examines and illustrates pioneering examples of exhibitions that have broken down boundaries and demonstrated that new approaches are possible, from Nochlin’s ‘Women Artists’ at the LACMA in the mid-1970s to Martin’s ‘Carambolages’ in 2016 at the Grand Palais in Paris. By exposing both the disparities and inclusive solutions, the author addresses the urgent need in the contemporary art world for curatorial strategies that provide alternatives to exclusionary models of collecting and display. In so doing, she provides an invaluable source of information for current thinkers and, in a world dominated by visual culture, a vital source of inspiration for today’s ever-expanding new generation of curators. Table of Contents Foreword • Preface • 1. What is Curatorial Activism? • 2. Resisting Masculinism and Sexism • 3. Tackling White Privilege and Western-Centrism • 4. Challenging Heterocentrism and Lesbo-Homophobia • 5. A Call to Arms: Strategies for Change