Sztuka i Polityka w Perspektywie Czarnych Feminizmów Lat Siedemdziesiątych i Osiemdziesiątych Dwudziestego Wieku
Art and Politics Through the Lens of Black Feminisms in the 1970s and 1980s

Summary/Abstract: In 1982, Michelle Cliff (1946-2016) published "Object into Subject: Some Thoughts on the Work of Black Women Artists" in the fifteenth issue of Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics dedicated to racism. Her article examines the construction of racist and sexist imaginations in the United States, as well as writings and artworks by Black women that deconstruct these mythologies through self-definition. In what ways does Cliff's article bring to light the relationship between art and politics from a feminist perspective within the context of its publication? Drawing primarily on Cliff's text, Black feminist thought and activism, research on Black women's history, exhibitions, and analyses of artworks, I explore the links between art, visual and material culture, historiography, and feminisms. My reading of this text leads me to question the relationship between representations and mythologies, as well as the role of fiction in recovering history. Finally, I put into perspective the work of Betye Saar, and particularly the assemblage The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972) reproduced in Cliff’s article.

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