Gumbo Ya Ya: Anthology of Contemporary African-American Women Artists. - book reviews

The book's final essay, "The Feminist Continuum: Art after 1970," by critic Laura Cottingham, emphasizes continuities in women's work since the 1970s, rather than the differences articulated in the previous two essays. She makes the point that much women's art in the 1980s, even that which is informed by deconstructionist theory and lacking in activist intent, is nevertheless politically and thematically rooted in women's achievement in the 1970s. Because the connection is so rarely enunciated, she points out, the lasting achievements of the 1970s have already been written out of history

Cottingham notes that if much recent women's art is routinely--and, she thinks, incorrectly--labeled postmodernist because of its visual appearance, nevertheless the tone, content, and strategies are "derived from the intellectual and aesthetic concerns" (p. 278) of 1970s women. "To situate Kruger, Levine, Holzer, Sherman, and other feminist-influenced artists under the totalizing umbrella of postmodernism erases their 70s antecedents and denies the political imperative of their art" (p. 278) Cottingham acknowledges and discusses several pervasive differences between feminists working in the 1970s and those active now, but she effectively demonstrates with concrete examples the persistence across three decades of intellectual and emotional bonds.

Useful as this lavish tome is, one wishes that a little more care had been expended upon its production. Numerous mistakes, including factual inaccuracies, typographical errors, and editorial inconsistencies, detract from the book's authority Inclusion of so many authors, with perhaps insufficient editorial attention, means there are, almost inevitably, problems of coherence, continuity, and repetition among the essays.

The anthology approach to writing history may be responsible for the fact that two overarching interpretive problems remain unresolved. One is the relationship between feminist art and the historical categories of modern and postmodern art. Feminist art is here variously described as modernist (in the sense of its idealistic first principles), postmodern, and antimodern. Those authors who address the issue generally agree that feminist art drove a wedge into the heart of formalist modernism, and that women were therefore primarily responsible for the emergence of a new sensibility But the truth of this belief is never examined in detail. There is little analysis of available cultural currents that women drew on and extended. Some feminists may be reluctant to investigate the achievements of men who were working along similar lines for fear that merely raising such questions might diminish women's accomplishments; however, feminist women could not have had the impact that they did if they had not drawn on currents of thought and expression that had meaning for a wider audience.

The second, more severe problem is posed in the first sentence of the book: "What is feminist art?" (p. 10). We never find out. Most of the authors do not discuss the issue directly. Broude and Garrard, who broach the question at the outset of their introductory essay, write at some length about aspects of 1970s art in ways that quite sensibly enable the reader to grasp the tenor of the movement, the issues that were at stake, and the contributions of feminist art, but they avoid precise definition. Oddly, throughout the book the editors reify the historical aspect by consistently capitalizing Feminist Art movement, but not feminist art or artist: Do they intend a distinction?