Feminist Substances - (Rethinking Art's Histories) by Charlotte Matter (Hardcover)

About the Book

Feminist substances considers why and how women artists engaged with plastics as artistic materials in the 1960s and 1970s. Discussing the works of Carla Accardi, Lea Lublin and Alina Szapocznikow, the book explores the feminist potential of these controversial materials, addressing questions of social reproduction, motherhood, desire and illness.

Book Synopsis

Numerous women artists engaged with industrial materials such as plastics in the 1960s and 1970s, contrary to what the discourse of the time would have us believe. As Feminist substances shows, their works offered unique approaches to plastics in art, introducing new material meanings through a feminist lens. With a focus on Europe and Latin America, the book discusses the practices of Carla Accardi, Lea Lublin and Alina Szapocznikow, combining close readings of selected artworks with broader considerations of their social contexts. It explores their use of Sicofoil, plexiglass, plastic inflatables, polyester resin and polyurethane foam to address key concerns of feminist thought in relation to social reproduction, motherhood, memory, desire and illness. Beyond commonplaces of plastics as generic bad materials, Feminist substances considers more complex ways of engaging with synthetic matter, taking into account our messy relationships with these controversial materials.

From the Back Cover

'Matter shows us how plastics changed the affective terrain of the art world and yielded a new lexicon for the expression of embodied experience and material conditions. For this generation of artists, critics and curators, the stakes of materialist criticism are high and could even have fatal consequences. We should all pay attention to this aesthetic history.'
--Amanda Boetzkes, Plastic Capitalism: Contemporary Art and the Drive to Waste

Feminist substances explores how artists used plastics to challenge normative ideas and sexist discourses in 1960s and 1970s art, and in society at large. Contesting the notion that industrial materials were primarily the domain of men artists, it considers how women engaged with plastics to address issues of social reproduction, motherhood, memory, desire and illness. The book argues that synthetic substances were uniquely suited to materialise feminist concerns because they were relatively new - and thus not predetermined by normative conventions - and related to the everyday.

Structured around case studies of Carla Accardi, Lea Lublin and Alina Szapocznikow, it combines close readings of artworks with broader reflections on their social contexts in Italy, Argentina and France. Feminist substances makes a valuable contribution to the study of materiality in art, reconsidered through the lens of gender. Attending to questions of labour, value, and the hierarchies between art and commodities, it also examines the intersection of material and class.

This richly illustrated book offers a singular look at materials that continue to shape and affect our everyday lives. It focuses on a period when plastics still held great promise, shortly before their demise in the wake of the oil price crises and growing awareness of their harmfulness. Discussing artworks and exhibitions as well as phenomena from everyday life, the book sheds light on the ambivalent meanings of plastics that still inform our complicated love-hate relationship with them.

Review Quotes

'Feminist substances is a thrilling, but also disturbing (!), study of the use of plastics in early feminist art. Charlotte Matter shows us how plastics changed the affective terrain of the art world and yielded a new lexicon for the expression of embodied experience and material conditions. The case studies take the reader from the U.S. to Argentina, Italy and Poland showing how the globalization of feminist art collided with this postwar substance, for better and for worse. For this generation of artists, critics and curators, the stakes of materialist criticism are high and could even have fatal consequences. We should all pay attention to this aesthetic history.'
Amanda Boetzkes, Plastic Capitalism: Contemporary Art and the Drive to Waste

About the Author

Charlotte Matter is Laurenz Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Basel, Switzerland