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Griselda PollockFeminist Interventions in Art's Histories*

Der Beitrag ist eineFassung des

dem Buch:Pollock (Hrsg.),

and Difference.Feminism, Feminity andHistoriesof Art, Methuen,1987.

1 Freely paraphrased fromFox-Genovese,

Wom en's History inNew Left Review,

p. 6.For the founding analysisthis area which has much

feminist studiesdemanding fem inist

comprehendof imperia-

discourse and practicee Edward Said, Orienta-

London, Routledge andPaul 1978.

Linda Nochlin, Why Havegreat Women

in ed. ElizabethThomas B . Hess,

t and Sexual Politics,Collier Macmillan

p. 2. See also thein which she poses

corollary question, Whythere been Great Male

The De -PoliticisationOctober, 1982

22.Thomas Kuhn, The

of ScientificChicago,

University Press,

Is adding w om en to art his tory the same as prod ucing fem inis t ar t his tory? 1 D e m a n -ding that wom en be conside red, no t only changes what is s tudied and what be com esrelevant to investigate, but i t challenges the existing disciplines polit ically. Womenhave not bee n om i t ted th rou gh forget fu lness or mere pre jud ice . The s t ruc tura lsexism of mo st academ ic disciplines contr ibutes act ively to the produc t ion an d p er-petuation of a gender hierarchy. What we learn about the world and i ts peoples isideologically pa t tern ed in conform ity with the social ord er wi thin which i t is prod u-ced. Women's s tudies are not just about women- but about the social systems andideological schemas which sustain the dominat ion of men over women within theother mutually inflecting regimes of power in the world, namely those of class andthose of race.2

Feminist art his tory, how eve r, began inside art his tory. Th e f irs t quest ion w asHave there been women art is ts? We ini t ial ly thought about women art is ts interms of art history's typical procedures and protocols- studies of art ists (the mono-graph) , col lect ions of wo rks to ma ke an oeuvre (catalogues raiso nne s) , qu est ions ofstyle and iconography , membersh ip of movements and ar t i s t s ' g roups , and ofcourse the qu est ion of qual i ty . I t soon b eca me clear that this would be a s t rai t jacketin which our s tudies of women art is ts would reproduce and secure the normat ivestatus of men art is ts and men's ar t whose superiori ty was unquest ioned in i ts dis-guise as Art and the Art is t . As early as 1971 Linda Nochl in warned us against get-ting into a no-win gam e t rying to nam e fem ale Michelangelos . T he cri ter ia of great-ness was a l ready male def ined . The ques t ion Why are there no Great WomenArtists? simply would not be answered to anything but women's disadvantage i fwe remained t ied to the categories of ar t his tory. These specif ied in advance thekind of answers such a quest ion would meri t . Women were not his torical ly s ignif i -cant art ists ( they could neve r deny their exis tence once we beg an to une arth the evi-dence again) because they did not have the innate nugget t of genius ( the phal lus)which is the na tural p rope rty of me n. So she wrote: A F eminis t cr i t ique of the dis-cipline is ne ede d w hich can pierce cul tural - ideological l imitat ions, to reveal b iasesand inadequacies not merely in regard to the question of wome n artists, but in the for-mulation of the crucial questions of the discipline as a whole. Thus the so-cal ledwoman quest ion far from being a peripheral sub-issue, can become a catalyst , apotent intel lectual inst rument , probing the most basic and >natural< assumptions,providing a paradigm for other kinds of internal quest ioning, and providing l inkswith paradigms establ ished by radical approaches in other f ields . 3

In effec t Lind a Noch l in called for a parad igm shif t . Th e not ion of a paradigmhas become qui te popular amongst social his torians of ar t who borrow from Tho-mas K u h n ' s Structure of Scientific Revolutions in order to art iculate the crisis in arthistory which ove rturn ed i ts exis t ing certaint ies and c onven t ions in the early 1970s.4A para digm define s the object ives shared within a scienti f ic com mu nity, wh at i taims to research and explain, i t s pro ced ures and i ts bou nda ries . I t is the discipl inarymatrix. A paradigm shif t occurs when the dominant mode of invest igat ion andexplanation i s fou nd to be unab le sat isfactori ly to explain the ph en om en on which isthat science's or discipline's job to analyse. In dealing with the study of the historyof nineteen th and twent ie th cen tury ar t the dominan t parad igm has been iden t i f i ed

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mo dernist art history. I t is not so m uch th at i t is defective but th at i t can be shownwork ideologically to constrain what can and cannot be discussed in re la tion toe creation and reception of art . Indeed modernist art history shares with other

modes of art history certa in key conceptions about creativity and thequalit ies of the aesthetic realm.5 Indicative of the potency of the ideo -

is the fact that when, in 1974 the social historian of art T.J. Clark in an articleth e Times Literary Supplement threw down the gauntle t from a marxist posit ionsti ll enti t led the essay on the C ond itions of Artis t ic Creations .6Within a few years the te rm produc t ion would have been inevi table and

has come to replace recept ion.7 This reflects the disseminationthe social history of art of categories of analysis derived from Karl Marx's

The introduction to this text which only became known in the midhas been a central resource for re thinking a social analysis of culture . In the

section Marx tr ies to think about how he can conceptualize the totali ty offorce s each of which has i ts own distinctive conditions of existence a nd effects

no ne th e less re lies on oth ers in the whole. H is objective is polit ical econo my andhe ana lyzes the re la t ions be tween produc t ion, consumption, d is t r ibut ion andbreaking down the separateness of each activity so that he can compre-

each as a distinct m om ent within a diff eren tia ted and structural totali ty. E achme dia ted by the other m om ents , i .e . cannot exist or com ple te its purp ose w ithout

he oth ers in a system in which produ ction has priority as it sets all in m otio n. Y etalso has its own specifi ty, i ts own d istinctiveness w ithin this non -organ ic tota-Marx gives the example of art in order to explain how the production of an

generates and conditions i ts consumption and vice versa: Production notsupplies a materia l for a need, but a lso supplies a need for the materia l . Asas consumption emerges from its init ia l natural s ta te of crudity and imme-. . i t becomes itself mediated as a drive by the object. The need which con-

feels for the obje ct is create d by the perc eptio n of i t. Th e obje ct of art -every other product - creates a public which is sensit ive to art and enjoys

Pro duc tion not only creates an objec t for the subject, but a lso a subject fore objec t . Thus produc t ion pro duces consu mption 1 . by c rea t ing the mater ia l for; 2. by de te rmining the manner of consumption; 3 . by c rea t ing the produc ts

posited as obje cts , in the form of a nee d felt by the consu m er. I t thus p rod u-the objec t of consum ption, th e mann er of consum ption and th e motive of con-

Co nsum ption l ikewise produces the produ cer ' s inc l inat ion by beckoninghim as an a im-de te rm ining need . 8

This form ulatio n banish es the typical art historical narrativ e of a gif ted indivi-creating out of his (sic) personal necessity a discrete work of art which thenout f ro m its priva te place of creation into a world w her e it will be admire d and

by art lovers expressing a human capacity for valuing beautiful objects .e discipline of art history l ike li terary crit icism wo rks to naturalise the se assum p-

W hat we are taug ht is how to app reciate th e greatness of the artis t and qualityart objects .

This ideology is contested by the argument that we should be studying theof social re la tions which form the conditions of the production and con-

of objects designated in that process as art . W riting of the shift in a re la tedof l i terary crit ic ism, Raymond Williams has observed: What seems to

very str iking is that n early a ll form s of cont em po rary crit ical theory are th eorie sconsumption. That is to say, that they are concerned with understanding an

5 For a classic statementseeMark Ftoskill, What isArtHistory? London, ThamesandHudson, 1976.6 T.J. Clark, On theConditions of ArtisticCreation, Times LiterarySupplement 24 May 1974, p.561-3.7 For example see the titleand the currency therebyafforded to The SocialProduction of Art, JanetWolff, London, MaomillanPress, 1981.8 Karl Marx, Grundrisse(1857-8) translated M artinNicolaus, London PenguinBooks, 1973, p. 92.

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9 Raymond W illiams, Baseand Superstructure inMarxistCultural Theory, inProblems in Materialism andCulture, London VesoBooks, 1980, p. 46.10 Raymond W illiams, TheLongRevolution, (1961),London Pelican Books,1965, ed, 1980, p. 55-6.11 Marx, op. cit. p. 100.

object in such a way that i t can be prof i tab ly and correct ly con sum ed. 9 The a l te rna -tive app roach is not to t rea t the wo rk of ar t as object but to consider ar t as practice.Williams advocates analysing f i rst the nature and then the conditions of a practice.Thus we wil l address the general condit ions of social product ion and consumptionprevailing in a par t icular society which ul t imately de term ine th e cond it ions of a spe-cific form of social acitivity and production, cultural practice. But then since all thecomponent act ivi t ies of social form ation are pract ices we can mov e with c onsidera-ble sophist icat ion f ro m the crud e marxist fom ulat io n of a ll cul tural pract ices beingdependent upo n and reduc ible to econom ic prac t ices ( the famou s base /supers t ruc-ture-idea) towards an conception of a complex social tota l i ty with many interrela-ting pract ices const i tut ive of and ul t imately determined within the matr ix of thatsocial format ion, which Marx formula ted as the mode of produc t ion. RaymondWilliams in an oth er essay mad e the case: Th e fata l ly wron g app roac h, to any suchstudy, is f ro m the assu mp tion of sep arate ord ers, as wh en we ordinar i ly assum e thatpolitical inst i tut ions and conv entions are of a dif fer ent and sep arate ord er f rom ar t i -stic inst i tut ions and conventions. Pol i t ics and ar t , together with science, re l igion,family l i fe and the other categor ies we speak of as absolutes, belong in a wholeworld of act ive and interact ive re la t io nsh ips. . . I f we begin f rom the whole textu re ,we can go on to study par t icula r act ivi ties , and their bear ings on oth er kinds. Y et w ebegin, norm ally, f rom the categor ies them selves, an d this has led again and again toa very damaging suppression of re la t ionships.* 1 0

Williams is formula t ing here one of the m ajor a rgumen ts about m ethod pro-pounded by Marx in the Grundrisse, where Marx asked himself where to begin hisanalysis. It is easy to start with what s eem s a self evide nt categ ory , such as po pula -tion in M arx's case, or ar t in ours. But the category doe s not m ak e sense witho utunderstanding of i ts components. So what method should be fol lowed? Thus i f Iwere to begin with the pop ulat io n, this would b e a chaotic conception of the w hole ,and I would then, by means of fur ther de te rmina t ion move ana lyt ica l ly towardsever more simple concepts, f rom the imaginary concrete to ever thinner abstrac-tions unti l I had a rr ived at the pop ulat ion again, bu t this t ime no t as a chaotic con-ception of a wh ole , but as a r ich total i ty of many d eterm inat io ns and rela t io ns . u

If we were to tak e ar t as our star t ing poin t , i t wou ld be a chaotic c onc eption ,an unwieldy blanket term for a diversif ied range of complex social , economic andideological pract ices and factors. Thus we might break i t down to product ion, cr i -ticsm, pat ron age , s tylis tic inf luence s, iconog raphic sources, exhibi t ions, t rad e, t ra i-ning, publishing , s ign systems, publics, e tc . T he re are man y ar t history boo ks wh ichleave the issue in that f ragm en ted way and pu t it tog ethe r as a wh ole only by com pi-ling chapters which deal with these components separately. But this is to leave theissue at the analyt ical level of the thin abstract ions - i .e . e lem ents ab stracted f r omtheir con crete interact io ns. So we retrace th e steps a t tem pting t o see art as a socialpractice, as a tota l i ty of many rela t ions and determinat ions, i .e . pressures andlimits.

Shifting the paradigm of ar t history involves therefore much more thanadding new mater ia ls - women and their history - to exist ing categor ies andmethods. It has led to wholly new ways of conceptualizing what it is we study andhow we do i t . O ne of the re la ted disciplines in which radical new app roac hes wereon offe r was the social history of ar t . Th e theoret ical a nd me thodo logical deb ates ofmarxist histor iograp hy are extrem ely per t in ent and necessary for prod ucing a femi-nist paradigm for the study of what i t is proper to rename as cul tural product ion.

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i t i s important to cha l lenge the pa te rna l author i ty of Marxism under whosesexual devisions are vir tually na tura l and inevitab le and fall be ne ath i ts the o -view, it is equa l ly impo rtant to take ad vantag e of the theore t ica l and his to-

revolut ion which the marxis t tradi t ion re presen ts . A fem inis t h is tori -mater ia l ism does not m ere ly subs t i tu te ge nde r for class bu t dec iphers the in tr i-

interdependence of c lass and gender as well as race in a ll forms of historicalNone the less there is a s tra tegic priority in insisting upon recognition of

po we r and of sexuality as historical force s of s ignificance as gre at as any ofe oth er ma trices privileged in M arxism o r oth er for m s of social history or cultu ralThere were , however , o ther new models deve loping in corresponding disc i-such as l i terary studies and fi lm theory to name but the most influentia l .

the immediate concern was to develop new ways of analysinga texts . Theof a beautiful object or f ine book expressing the genius of the author/artis t

d through him (sic) the highest aspirations of human culture was displaced by aon the pro duc tive activity of texts- scenes of w ork , writ ing or sign m akin g, and

read ing , viewing. Ho w is the historical and social a t wo rk in the pro du ction andof texts? W ha t are texts doing socially?

Cultural practices were defined as s ignifying systems, as practices of repres-s i tes not fo r the produ c t ion of beaut i ful th ings evoking b eaut i ful fee lings .

prod uce m eanings and pos it ions f ro m which those meanings a re con sum ed.needs to be def ined in severa l ways . As representa t ion the te rm

that images and texts are not mirrors of the world, merely reflecting theirRepresenta t ion s t resses something re fashioned, coded in rhe tor ica l tex-

or pictoria l term s, qu ite distinct fro m its social existence. 1 2 Represen ta t ion canbe u nd ers to od as >articulating< in a visible or socially palp ab le fo rm social pro-

which de te rmine the representa t ion but then a re ac tua l ly a f fec ted andby the form s, practices and effec ts of rep rese nta tion . In th e f irs t sense

of t rees , persons , p laces is unders tood to be ordered according toe convent ions and codes of prac t ices of representa t ion, pa int ing, photography,

and so forth. In the second sense, which involves the f irs t inevitably,articulates - puts into wo rds, visualizes, puts tog eth er - social practi-

and forces which are not, l ike trees, there to be seen but which we theoreticallyto condition our existence. In one of the classic texts enunciating this pheno-

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis B onaparte, (1852) Kar l Marx repea tedlyon the meta ph or of the s tage to explain the man ner in which the fun dam enta ld economic transformations of French society were played out in the polit ical

1848-51, a polit ical level which fun ctio ne d as a repres enta tion bu t then acti-e f fec ted the con di t ions of economic and soc ia l deve lopm ent in France subse-

Cultural practice as a s i te of such representation has been analysed inderived from Marx's init ia l insights about the rela tion between the polit icald econom ic leve ls .13 Finally repres ent atio n involves a third in flectio n, fo r i t signi-

something represented to , addressed to a reader /viewer /consumer .Theories of represe nta t ion have been e lab ora ted in re la t ion to Marxis t deb a-s abo ut ideolog y. Ideolo gy do es not mere ly refer to a collection of ideas or belief .is defined as a systematic ordering of a hierarchy of meanings and a sett ing in

of posit ion s for the assimilation of those m eanin gs. I t refer s to mate ria l p racti-embodied in concrete social insti tutions by which the social systems, their con-

and co ntradictio ns ar e nego tia ted in term s of the struggles within social for m a-

12 R.Barthes, The Rhetoricof the Image, in ed. S. Heath,Image-Music-Text,London, Fontana 1977. Thisremains a classic example ofthis practice of analysis.13 K.M arx, The EighteenthBrumaire of Louis Napoleon,(1852) in K. MarxundF .Engels, Selected Works onOne Volume, London,Lawrence and W ishart,1970. For discussion seealso S. Hall, The ..Political.,and the ..Econom ic., inMarx's Theory of Classes, ined. A. Hunt Class and ClassStructure, London, Law-rence Wishart, 1977.

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4 Ed. Dale Spender, M en'sModified. The

Pact of Feminism on theDisciplines,

The Pergamon1981.

tions between the dominant and the dominated , the explo i t ing and the explo i ted .In ideology cultural practices are at once the m eans by which we m ak e sense of th esocial process in which we are caught up and indeed produced. But i t is a s i te ofstruggle and confusion, for the character of the knowledges produced are ideologi -cal, part ial , condit ioned by social place and power.

Understanding of what specif ic ar t is t ic practices are doing, their meaningsand social effects dem and s the ref ore a dual app roac h. Firs t ly the practice must belocated as part of the social s truggles between classes , races , genders ar t iculat ingwith other s i tes of representat ion. But secondly we must analyse what any specif icpractice is doing , wh at mean ings is being prod uce d and how and for w hom . Sem io-tic analysis has provided necessary tools for systematic description of how images o rlanguages or oth er s ign systems, (fash ion, eat ing, travel etc) pro duc e mean ings andpositions for the consumption of meanings. Mere formal analysis of s ign systems,however, can easily loose contact with the sociality of a practice. Semiotic analysisapproached through developments in theories of ideology and informed by analy-ses of the production and sexing of subjectivi t ies in psychoanalysis provided newways to unders tand the role of cultural act ivi t ies in the making of meanings, butmore importantly in the making of social subjects . The impact of these procedureson the study of cultur al practice s entirely displaces pu re stylistic or icono grap hic tre -atments of isolated g roups of objects . C ultural practices do a job which has a m ajo rsocial s ignificance in the a r t iculat ion of me aning s abo ut the w orld in the n egotiat ionof social conflicts, in the production of social subjects.

As cri t ical as these radical approaches in other f ields was the massiveexpansion of feminis t s tudies at tendant on the resurgence of the women's move-ment in the late 1960s. W om en 's s tudies eme rged in almost al l acad em ic disciplineschallenging the pol i t ics of knowledges 1 4 But what is the object of women's s tu-dies? W rit ing wom en back d oes indeed cause the d isc ip l ines to be reform ula ted butit can leave the disciplinary bo und aries in tact . Th e very divis ions of know ledge intosegregated compartments have poli t ical effects . Social and feminis t s tudies of cul-tural practices in the visual ar ts are commonly ejected from art his tory by beinglabelled a sociological approach as if reference to social conditions and ideologicaldeterminations are introducin g foreign concern s into the discrete realm of ar t . Butif we aim to ero de th e false divisions wh at is the unifying fram ew ork fo r the analysisof w o m e n ?

In their introduction to the anthology Women and Society, the collectiveresponsible for the > W om en in Society< course at Ca m bridg e U nivers i ty in the 1970squestioned the possibil i ty of even taking the term women for granted: At f irs tsight, i t might seem as if conce pts like m ale/fe m ale, man /w om an, individual/family,are so selfevident that they need no >decoding

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trates on themes tha t re turn to the socia l ra ther than to the indiv idual sphere ,emphasising the social construction of sexual d ifference. 15 (my italics).

At a con fere nce the ar t is t Mary K elly was aske d to talk to the que stion >Whatis feminis t ar t?< She redirected the question to ask >What is the problematic forfeminist artistic practice?

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18 Rozsika Parker andriseldaPollock, OldMistresses. Women Art and

Ideology, London RoutledgeandKegan Paul, 1981,Sprinted Pandora Press,1986, p. 3.

which cer ta in k in d s o f u n d ers tan d in g are p re ferred an d o th ers ren d ered u n th in k -able. Th u s a p a in t in g o f a w om an h av in g ch o sen a sexu al p ar tn er ou t s id e ma rr iagewill b e read as a fa l l en wom an , a d i sord er in g forc e in th e soc ia l f ab r i c , an e m b o d i -ment of m ay h e m , a con ta min at in g th reat to th e p u r i ty o f a l ad y ' s w om an h o od , ananimalised an d coarsen ed creatu re c loser to th e p h ys i ca l i ty o f th e work in g c las spopulations an d to th e sexu al p romiscu i ty o f p r imi t i ve p eop les e t c . e t c .But wil l i t be read d i f ferent ly i f the viewer i s a woman or a man? Wil l the

representation b e d i f f eren t if th e p rod u cer i s a w om an or a m an ? O n e o f th e p r imaryresponsibilites of a f emin i s t in terven t ion mu st b e th e s tu d y o f women as p rod u cers .But w e h a v e p r o b l e m a t i s e d t h e c a t e g o r y w o m e n t o m a k e i t s h i s t o r i c a l c o n s t r u c -tion th e very ob jec t o f ou r an a lys i s . Th u s we p roceed n ot f rom th e as su mp t ion o f agiven ess en ce o f w om an ou t s id e o f or p ar t ia ll y im m u n e to soc ia l con d i t i on s . In s t ea dwe h av e to an a lyse th e d ia l ec t i ca l re la t i on b e t we en b e in g a p er son p os i t i on ed as inthe f emin in e w i th in h i s tor i ca l l y vary in g soc ia l ord ers an d th e h i s tor i ca l l y sp ec i f i cways in wh ich we a lways ex ce ed ou r p lac em en ts . T o b e a p rod u cer o f ar t in b ou r-geois soc i e ty in l a t e n in e te en th cen tu ry P ar i s wa s in so m e sen se a t ran sgress ion o fthe d e f i n i t i o n o f t h e f e m i n i n e , i t se l f c l a s s l o a d e d t e r m . W o m e n w e r e m e a n t b o b emothers an d d omest i c an ge l s wh o d id n ot work an d cer ta in ly d id n ot earn mon ey .Yet t h e s a m e s o c ia l s y s t e m w h i c h p r o d u c e d t h i s i d e o l o g y o f d o m e s t i c i ty e m b r a c e dand m ad e v iv id b y mi l l i on s o f w om en , a l so gen erat ed th e f emin i s t revo l t w i th a d i f -ferent se t o f d e f in i t i on s o f women ' s p oss ib i l i t i e s an d amb i t i on s . Yet th ese wereargued for an d l i ved ou t w i th in th e b ou n d a r i es e s tab l i sh ed b y th e d om in an t id eo lo -gies of f emin in i ty . Bu t in th at su b t l e n eg ot ia t i on o f wh at i s th in k ab le or b e yo n d th elimits, th e d om in an t d e f in i t i on s an d th e soc ia l p rac t i ces th rou gh wh ich th ey are p ro-duced an d ar t icu la ted are m od i f i ed - s om et im es rad ica ll y as a t m om en ts o f maxi -mum co l l ec t i ve p o l i t i ca l s tru gg l e b y wo m en or le s s over t ly as p ar t o f th e co n s tan tnegotiations of con trad ic t i on s to wh ich a l l soc ia l sys t ems are su b jec t . In th ose sp a-ces wh ere d i f f eren ce i s mos t in s i s t en t ly p rod u ced , i t i s p oss ib l e to ou t l in e in l argercharacters th e d i f f eren t ia l con d i t i o n s o f wo m en ' s ar t i s ti c p rac t i ce in su ch a wa y th atits d e l i n e a t i o n r a d i ca l ly t r a n s fo r m s t h e ex i s t in g a c c o u n t s o f t h e p h e n o m e n o n .A p art i cu arly f ru it fu l reso u rce for con tem p or ary cu l tu ra l s tu d ies h as b een

discourse an alys i s , p ar t i cu lar ly mod e l l ed on th e wr i t in gs o f th e F ren ch h i s tor ianMichel F ou cau l t . F ou cau l t p rov id ed an an atomy of wh at h e ca l l ed th e h u man sc i en -ces. Th os e b od ies o f k n ow led ge an d wa ys o f wr i t in g wh ich too k as th e i r ob jec t - an din fac t p ro d u c ed as a ca tego ry for an a lys i s - M an . H e in trod u ced th e n ot ion o f d i s -cursive format ion s to d ea l w i th th e sys t emat i c in tercon n ect ion s b e tween an array o frelated s ta te me n ts wh ic h d e f in e a f i e ld o f k n o w led ge , i t s p oss ib i l i t i e s an d it s occ lu -sions. Th us on th e age nd a for analys i s i s no t just the h is tory o f art , i . e . the art of t hepast, b u t a l so ar t h i s tory , th e d i scu rs ive format ion wh ich in ven ted th at en t i ty tostudy it.Of cou rse th ere h as b een ar t b e fore ar t h i s tory cata logu ed i t . Bu t ar t h i s tory

as a organ i sed d i sc ip l in e d e f in ed wh at i t i s an d h ow i t can b e sp ok en o f . In wr i t in gOld Mistresses, Wom en, Art and Ideology ( 1 9 8 1 ) R o z s i k a P a r k e r a n d I f o r m u l a t e dthe i s su e th u s : To d i scover th e h i s tory o f women an d ar t i s in p ar t to accou n t forthe way ar t h i s tory i s wr i t t en . To exp ose i t s u n d er ly in g va lu es , i t s as su mp t ion s , i t ssilences and i t s prejudices i s a l so to understand that the way women art i s ts arerecorded i s crucial to the d ef in i t ion of art and arti s t in our so cie ty . 1 8Art h i s tory i t se l f i s t o b e u n d ers to od as a ser i e s o f rep re sen tat io n a l p rac t i ces

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sent configuration of sexual poli t ics and power relat ions . Art His tory is not jus tindifferent to wo m en; i t is a masculinis t discourse, party to the social con structionof sexual differen ce. A s an ideological discourse it is com posed of pro ced ures andtechniques by which a specific repr esen tat ion of art is m an ufa ctu red . Th at re pres -entation is secured arou nd th e primary f ig ure of the ar t is t as individual crea tor . N odoubt theo ries of the social produc tion of ar t com bined with the s tructuralis t assas-sination of the au tho r would also lead to a denun ciat ion of the archaic individualismat the heart of art historical discourse. But it is only feminists who have nothing tolose with the dese cration of Genius . T he individualism of which the ar t ist is a pr im esymbol is gender exclusive.19 The ar t is t is one major ar t iculat ion of the contradic-tory natur of bourgeois ideals of masculinity.2 0 The f igure remains f i rmly en t ren-ched in marxis t ar t his tory witness the work of T.J . Clark, the Modern Art andModernism course at the Open Univers i ty and even Louis Althusser on Cremo-nini.21 I t has become imperative to deconstruct the ideological manufacture of thispriveleged masculine individual in art historical discourse.

Complementing the task of deco nstruc tion, is feminis t rewrit ing of the his toryof art in terms which f irmly locate gender relat ions as a determining factor in cul-tural prod uction and in s ignif ication. This involves feminis t readings, a term borro -wed from li terary and f i lm theory. Feminis t readings involve texts of ten producedby men and with no conscious feminis t concern or design which are susceptible tonew unders tan ding through fem inis t percept ions . Psychoanalys is has been a ma jorforce in European and Brit ish feminis t s tudies despite widespread feminis t suspi-cion of the sexist applications of Fre udi an theo ry in this centu ry. A s Juliet M itchellcommented in her important book challenging feminis t cr i t iques , Psychoanalysisand Feminism, Fre udia n th eory o ffers not a prescription fo r a patr iarch al societybut a description of one which we can use to unders tand i ts functionings. In herintroduction she refe rred to the Paris ian feminis t grou p Psychanalyse et Poli t iqueand explained the ir interest in psychoan alysis .

Influericed, but cr i tcal ly, by the part icular inte rpret at ion of Fre ud of fer ed byJacques Lacan, >Psychanalyse et Politique< would use psychoanalysis for an under-standing of the operations of the unconscious. . . Their concern is to analyse howmen and w om en l ive as men and women within the material conditions of their exi-stence - both g eneral and specif ic . Th ey argu e that psychoanalysis gives us the co n-cepts with which we can comprehend how ideology functions; closely connectedwith this , it fur th er offers analysis of the place and m eaning of sexuali ty and gend erdifferences within society. So wh ere M arxis t theory exp lains the histor ical and eco-nomic s i tuation, psychoanalysis , in conjunction with notions of ideology alreadygained in dialectical materiaism, is the way of unders tanding ideology and sexua-lity.*22

Foucault has provided a social account of the discursive construction ofsexuality and he argued that in some cri t ical sense sexuali ty is fundamentallybourgeois in origin. It was in the great middle classes that sexuality albeit in amorally res tr icted and sharply de fined fo rm , f irs t bec am e of m ajo r ideological s igni-ficance. 23 Fo uca ult iden tifies psycho analysis as itself a pro du ct of the will to k now ,the construction and subjection of the sexualised body of the bourgeois ie. 2 4 T h edeployment of psychoanalytical theory by contemporary feminis ts is not a f l ightfrom his torical analysis into some universalis t ic theory. Rooted his tor ically on themode of analysis (and a techniq ue f or relieving the ex trem e effects) of the socialrelations, practices and inst i tut ions which prod uce d and regula ted bourgeo is sexua-

19 Griselda Pollock, Art, Ar:School and Culture -Individualismafter the deathof the artist, Block, 1985/6no 11 and Exposure (USA)1986 vol 24 no 3.20 For fuller discussion ofthis point see GriseldaPollock, The History andPosition of the Contempo-rary Woman Artist, Aspects,1984, no 28.21 The point was made in aseminar by Adrian Rivkin atthe University of Leeds in1985. See also SimonWatney, Modernist Studies:TheClass o f'83 , Art History,1984, vo l 7. n o . L O nAlthusser see Louis Althus-ser, Cremonini, Painter of theAbstract, and A Letter onArt... in Lenin and Philosophyandother Essays, trans. BenBrewster, New Left Books,1971.22 Juliet Mitchell, Psycho-analysis and Feminism,London, Allen Lane, 1974, pxxii.23 The quotation is fromJeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politicsand Society. The Regulationof Sexuality since 1800,London Longman, 1981, p.33. Foucault elaborates thecase in The History ofSexuality (La VolontedeSavoir 1976), London , AllenLane, 1978, p.127.Wemust say that there is abourgeois sexuality, and thatthere are class sexualities.Or rather, that sexua lity isoriginally, historicallybourgeois,and tha t, in itssuccessive shifts andtranspositions, it inducesclass specific effects."24 Foucault, op. cit., p. 129.

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Charles Harrison,Modernism

and Methods,1-2, Modern Art and

The OpenPress, 1983, p. 5.

lity, psychoanalysis makes i ts revelat ion of the making of sexual difference. Fou-cault speak s of class sexuali t ies but these fund am enta lly involved gend ered sexuali-ties. The making of masculine and feminine subjects crucial ly involved the manu -facture and regulat ion of sexuali t ies , radically different and hardly complementarylet alone compat ib le , be tween those des ignated men and women. But these termswere ideological abstractions compared to the careful dis t inctions maintained bet-ween ladies and women in class terms, and gentlemen and working class men. Thesocial definit ion of class and of gender w ere int ima tely con nec ted. Bu t the issue ofsexuality and i ts constant anxiet ies pressed with major ideological s ignif icance onthe bourgeois ie .

For through psychoanalytical theory we can recognise the specif i ty of visualperformance and ad dress . Th e construction of sexuali ty and i ts und erpi nnin g sexualdifference if prof oun dly im plicated in looking and the scopic f ield. Visual r epr e-sentation is a privileged s i te (forgive the F reu dian pu n).

There are s ignif icant continuit ies between f iminis t ar t practice and feminis tart his tory for those dividing walls which norm ally segreg ate a r tm akin g fro m art cri-ticism and ar t his tory are eroded by the larger community to which we belong asfeminists, t he women ' s movemen t . We a re ou r own conver sa t iona l communi tydeveloping our paradigms of practice in constant interaction and supportive com-mentary. Th e poli tical poin t of femin is t ar t his tory must be to change the p rese nt bymeans of how we re- repre sent the pas t . Tha t mean s we mu s t refuse the ar t h is to-rian's per m itted ignora nce of living ar t is ts and co ntr ib ute to the prese nt day s trugg-les of l iving p rod uce rs .

If m ode rnis t a r t his tory supplies the para digm which feminis t ar t his tory of themodern period m ust con test , mod ernis t cr it icism and mod ernis t practice are the tar-gets of conte mp orary prac t ice . M odernis t thoug ht has been def ine d as funct ioningon three basic tenets : the specif icty of aesthetic experience; the self suff iciency ofthe visual; the teleological evolution of ar t au ton om ous f ro m any oth er social causa-tion or pressure .2 5 M odernis t p ro tocols prescr ibe wha t is va l ida ted as modern ar t ,i.e. w hat is relev ant, prog ressing and in the lead. A rt which engag es with the socialworld is poli t ical , sociological , narrat ive, demeaning the proper concerns of theartist with the natu re of the medium or wi th hum an ex per ience emb odied in pa in tedor hewn gestures . Feminis t ar t is t ic practices and texts have intervened in al l iancewith other radical groups to disrupt the hegemony of modernis t theories and practi-ces even now st i l l act ive in ar t education in the so called post modernis t culture.They have done this not merely to make a place for women art is ts within the ar tworld's pa ram ete rs . T he poin t is to mou nt a sustained and far reach ing poli tical cr i-tique of contemporary representa t ional sys tems which have an overdeterminedeffect in the social prod uctio n of sexual differen ce and i ts related g end er hierarc hy.But equally imp ortantly they are discovering ways to address wom en as subjects notmasquerading as the fem inine objec ts of mascul ine des i re and fan tasy and hat re d .

Feminism-as-a-theory represents a divers if ied f ield of theorisat ions of attimes cons iderable complexi ty . Their product ion and ar t icu la t ions i s , however ,qualified at all times by the political responsibility of working for the liberation ofwomen.What has ar t his tory to do with this s truggle? A r em ote and l imited disciplinefor the prese rvatio n of and research into objects and cultures of limited if not esote-ric interest , ar t his tory might seem simply irrelevant. But ar t has become a growingpart of big business , a ma jor com po nen t of the leisure industry, a s ite of co rpo rate

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investment. Take for ins tance the exhibit ion at the Tate Gallery in 1984, The Pre-Raphaelites. Spon sored by a m ult inatio nal who se interests not only involved m ine -ral, banking and property concerns , but publishing houses , zoos, waxworks as wellas newspapers and magazines . What were they supporting - an exhibit ion whichpresented to the public, men looking at beautiful women as the natural order ofmaking beautiful things? Reviewing the exhibit ion Deborah Cherry and I conclu-ded: High C ulture plays a specif iable part in the repr odu ction of w om en's opp res-sion, in the circulation of relat ive values and m eaning s for the ideological c onstructsof masculinity and femininity. Representing creativi ty as masculine and Woman asthe beautiful image for the desir ing masculine gaze, High Culture systematicallydenies knowledge of women as producers of cu l ture and meanings . Indeed HighCulture is decisively positioned against feminism. Not only does it exclude theknowledge of w om en art is ts prod uce d w ithin fem inism , but i t wo rks in a phallocen-tric signifying system in which >woman< is a sign within discou rses on m asculinity.The knowledge and s ignif ications produced by such events as The Pre-Raphaelitesare int imately co nnec ted w ith the workings of patr iarch al po w er in ou r society .26There are many who see ar t his tory as a defunct and irrelevant disciplinary

boundary. Th e s tudy of cultural productio n ha s bled so widely and cha nged so radi-cally from an object to a discourse and practice orientat ion that there is a completecommunication breakdown between ar t his tor ians working s t i l l within the norma-tive discipline and those who are contest ing the paradigm. We are witnessing aparadigm shift which will rewrite all cultural history. For these reasons I suggestthat we no lon ger think of a fem inis t ar t his tory but a feminis t interve ntion in ar t 'shistories. W he re w e are coming from is not som e othe r f ledgling discipline or inte r-disciplinary form at ion . I t is f ro m the wom en 's mov em ent m ade rea l and concre te inall the variety of practices in which women are actively engaged to change theworld. This is no new art his tory aiming to make improvements , br ing i t up todate, season the old with current intel lectual fashions or theory soup. The feminis tproblematic in this particular field of the social is shaped by the terrain - visualrepresentations and th eir practic es - on which we struggle. Bu t it is ultim ately defi-ned within that collective cr i t ique of social , econom ic and ideological pow er w hichis t he women ' s movemen t .

26 Deborah Cherry andGriselda Pollock, PatriarchalPower and the P reRaphaeli-tes, Art History, 1984 vol 7 no4, p. 494.