Art, Feminism, and Community - (British Academy Monographs) by Ceren Özpinar (Hardcover)

About the Book

The book explores how the lives and communities of artists and their artworks intersect. It focuses on paintings, installations, photographs, batik, and performance art from Turkey between 1973 and 1998. Covering transnational networks, political alliances, and ethnic communities, it reveals bonds of familial, professional, and friendly relations.

Book Synopsis

How do artists, communities, and art connect with one another? How might multiple feminist views be used to interpret art? Art, Feminism, and Community: Feminist Art Histories from Turkey, 1973-1998 examines the lives and communities of artists and their works from Turkey. It suggests that feminisms shape artists' relationships and practices. It analyses seven major case studies and details rarely seen paintings, installations, photographs, drawings, batik, and performance art from 1973 to 1998. The work brings together twenty artists and cultural figures in a world of multifaceted relationships that influence the creation of new art. Uncovering familial, professional, and friendship links, it recreates transnational networks, intellectual collectives, political alliances, and ethnic communities. It demonstrates how artists have analysed their own experiences in their works, reflecting the effects of their communities and lives, even though these themes have been mostly overlooked in Turkish art history.

Review Quotes

"Ceren Özpınar brings new and exciting discussions to feminist analysis of contemporary art and to analysis of Turkish modern/contemporary culture. This extremely well-researched book will have an important place in the present literature. It will undoubtedly contribute immensely to feminist art historiography in particular, as well as to the contemporary literature on feminist art, on Turkish art, and on contemporary art more generally." -- Hilary Robinson, Loughborough University

"Art, Feminism, and Community: Feminist Art Histories from Turkey, 1973-1998, is a remarkable tapestry of granular stories about art and feminism. Ceren Özpınar, through a relational reading of works by several major artists vis-à-vis their subjectivities shaped and moulded by artistic, social, and political environments, offers a powerful alternative to Turkish art histories. By situating artists and artworks in assorted communities, Özpınar highlights historical contexts and connections alongside instances of gender, ethnic, class, or political oppression and othering the artists faced and reacted to in their art. This is a history of artworks inflected with feminisms at its best." -- Belgin Turan Özkaya, Middle East Technical University

About the Author

Ceren Özpinar, Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture, University of Brighton

Ceren Özpinar is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Brighton. Prior to this, Özpinar was a British Academy Newton International Fellow at the University of Sussex (2015-17). Her research centres on questions of gender, sexuality, race, and transnational networks and communities in modern and contemporary art of Turkey, the Middle East, and their diasporas. She is the co-editor of Under the Skin: Feminist Art and Art Histories from the Middle East and North Africa Today (2020), and the author of The Art Historiography in Turkey (1970-2010) (2016). Her articles appeared in the Art Journal, Art & the Public Sphere, Image & Text, and Third Text.