e ESSAYS ON FEMINISM AND ART Laura Cottingham GB Ase anata ance Germany panne ARTS ‘Malaya The Netherland = Russe Singapore» Stara —to be, and the dean of the art school at the time was Schapiro's husband, painter Paul Brach. Conversations between the author ‘and Schapiro, New York, 1995. 8 Broude and Garrard, "Conversations," 67. =e Notes on lesbian An attempt to construct a lesbian history, whether it be soci- ological or art historical, involves confronting silence, erasure, misrepresentation, and prejudice—all of which present formida- ble obstacles to historical research and writing. How is it possible to reconstruct a story from evidence that is partial, absent, hid- den, denied, obfuscated, trivialized, and otherwise suppressed? The traditional methodology of historical research, and by extension the value system used to evaluate the quality of texts written in the name of history, is necessarily overdetermined by « prioritization of primary sources. But what if these primary sources do not exist because governments have not counted oF otherwise documented the historical subject(s); or because the social and political persecution of said subject(s) has encouraged them to silence themselves; or because prejudice has enabled families and biographers to destroy documents such as letters and diaries that contain the crucial content that might constitute ‘heaton fm Callge Art Journal (Wed 1998) 72-77176 testimony or evidence? Some lesbian historians understandably believe that more information about lesbians in the past exists than we now know of or have access to and that, therefore, more primary sources and more traditional history is forthcoming. But it might also just as easily be assumed that the availability of written proof of lesbians and lesbianism is significantly less pre- sent and existent than lesbians and lesbianism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American history have in fact been, Although the traditional historical practices of excavation and recontextualization have yielded valuable contributions to the understanding and construction of European and American lesbian history by scholars such as Lillian Faderman and Barbara Smith in the United States, Ilse Kokula in Germany, and the Lesbian History Group in the United Kingdom, published texts by these and others invariably begin with an enunciation of the particular problems raised in ren- dering lesbians visible given how deliberately and successfully patriarchy has made us invisible. Even more often, patriarchal societies have disallowed women the possibility of being lesbian tall, in which case it is extremely difficult to produce and leave behind lesbian documents, The introduction to a recent work by the London-based Lesbian History Group, Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbians in History, 1840-1985, outlines some of the distinct problems lesbian historians face: Witingthe histor of women is dificult beoue ina patriarchal soi (i.e, one onganied in the in interest of men) fever sources concerning women exist and thos that do have offen een jnored as “unimportant,” o have been altered Theta ofthe feminist itorian sft to rescue women fom oblivion and then tointerpret women’seperience within the cone ofthe soci ofthe time. Tiss co tr forthe lesbian istrion Inher cs, herr, the problem of sources ismagifed a thousand. Firs, there relativly litle elicit infor= ‘mation about lesbian lies inthe pes, though probably much mor than we noe about tthe moment. Second, much imparton rater hasbeen nipped as irlevant ris significance overlooked by eklas pursing adiferent theory. ‘Materia! may hove been omitedas "priate" lite to erbarasthe fly or clienate the reader. Mucho thecidence we do have has ben dstrted by his- torians who wlfily or through ignorance have tured lesbian ies into “nor- ‘mal” heterosexual ones. Women can be gored, bu lesbian mut be expunged, Lesbions donot sully leave records oftheirlives. Those who do may not inlude ry detils hich would identi them os unmisabably lesbians.” tis after all, one of the central political problems of history, as both a philosophical construct and an academic discipline, that it can only be written—that is, it ean only exist—from what has both already existed and still now exists. Additionally, history not only depends on the preexistence of a material world of (already) lived experience, it also depends on both the existence and the accuracy of documents for and of the already lived, as well as the interpretation of those documents. Given that what history we do know is a narrative of male supremacy no matter how subver~ sively or productively we choose to interpret or utilize it, how is it theoretically possible to expect that the documentary evidence left behind could yield lesbian information that is in any way commensurate to or reflective of lesbian experience? Lesbian history invariably confronts the most profound conundrum of the basic premise of history, for it must address not only what has or has not been left behind by way of docu mentary remains (and how to decode them through the distort ed lens of the present), but must in addition confront the successful assimilation of women into heterosexuality and ask why this has occurred. For to understand lesbians, past and pre- sent, we must acknowledge that the lesbian Functions within his- torical parameters that constitute « hard-earned escape from the politically enforced narrative of heterosexuality. The persistence of such neutralized misnomers as “sexual preference” masks the coercive function of heterosexuality by setting up a false premise that equates same-gender and cross-gender affections (though“sexual preference” is usually only called in to label gays or lesbians). Sexual preference also deliberately disables any full under- standing of lesbians and lesbianism by relegating both our histo- riesand our bodies to the limited realm of sexual activity. Even when lesbianism is consciously and obviously enunci ed in textual and visual representation, readers, viewers, and erit ics often remain determined to ignore it. An example given in Barbara Smith's introduction to Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology should be familiar to most American readers of this essay, as it concerns the 1982 winner of both the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and the American Book Award for what became a 1985 Hollywood feature that garnered Academy Award nominations across the board: Alice Walker's The Color Purple. In her examination of the forces that keep lesbianism, and most especially black lesbianism, unmentionable, Smith writes that “Alice Walker's novel, The Color Purple, is a marvel because it so clearly depicts the origins of con- temporary Black feminism in the lives of our mothers, in this case of poor women living in the rural South. It also represents a breakthrough in both the context of trade publishing and Black literature, because ofits original and positive portrayal of a Black lesbian relationship. Not surprisingly, in the unanimously posi- tive reviews of The Color Pale, Black and white eritics have steadfastly refused even to mention the true subject of the book."= Similar and more recent examples of not seeing and not ‘naming the lesbian could be listed ad infinitum. In a book of Berenice Abbott photographs recently republished in 1990, the foreword by Muriel Rukeyser takes pains to call the reader's attention to Abbott's portraits of James Joyce, André Gide, and Jacques Cocteau but fails to reveal the fact that Abbott pho- tographed high culture's Left Bank lesbian set of the 1920s, and that Abbott's charmed lesbian circle is featured one-by-one in the portraits of Jane Heap, Syivia Beach, Princess Eugene Murat, Janet Flanner, Djuna Barnes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and— from their countenances and appearances—many of the other women featured in the book.’ Not to acknowledge Abbott's lesbianism is not to understand her art or her subjects. Such disacknowledgment also functions to deny lesbians access to our cultural history, thus allowing the heterosexual regime to claim it falsely for themselves. Likewise, the lesbian life and art of the French photographer Claude Cahun, a contemporary of Abott's, was exhibited for the first time in a large retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1995. Cabun’s work, which consists mostly of defiant, ironic, and direct-gaze self-portraits produced during the 1930s and 1940s, is hardly helped or sufficiently explained by the heterosexualist writings included in the recent catalogs of her work. Some understand~ ing of the lesbian subculture of Paris before World War II should bbe as necessary an art historical tool to comprehending Cahun (or Abbott!) as is some knowledge of French—especially consid- ering that Cahun collaborated with her lover Suzanne Malherbe on many of her photomontages. The particularities of lesbian life, as historicized and grounded in social experi- cence, are still not accepted as even appropriate, much less nec~ essary, art-historical tools. How often have I been asked, by heterosexual art historians and critics after a few glasses of wine, whether it really matters at all whether an artist is lesbian or gay? Let me say that for many of us it matters a great deal—and it is obviously of significant importance to governments past and present that have enacted, and continue to enact, laws and. other prohibitions against us. Perhaps, though, as with the silence around The Color Purple, the problem of not naming the lesbianism in the art of Abbott, Cahun, and others is related to heterosexuality's ideological imperative that lesbianism cannot be mentioned or shown if this is done with approval. It appears that lauding lesbianism—not just describing it—is the most unmentionable deed, For Abbott's photographic portraits of friends and lovers, Cahun's self-por- traits, and Walker's fictional narrative render lesbianism and the ‘women who live itwith dignity and approval. ‘The disacknowledgment of artists and writers who are les~ bians, and of art and literary productions that are les180 colludes with the disapproval that lesbianism meets in social and political life. And in academic life. As Marilyn Frye has observed in "A Lesbian’s Perspective on Women's Studies,” women's stud- ies departments across the United States are locked into an “understanding of women that aggressively accepts the heterosex- ‘alization of women as normal and the marginalization of les- bians as natural or inevitable. Frye suggests a reconsideration of ‘what sexual polities in the university might be if it weren't het- erosexist polities: Imagine areal eerl of th hetroseuaitteoching our prgrem provides Imagine hr facut members ot age university engaged routine and ser- cul in the vigorous and aggresive encouragement of women to be Lesbians, Aeling them ora shils ond ideas nga Lesbos, teaching the connections ‘uteen Lsbonon end fominsm and betwen heteraexon and sem, build ingundertanding of hoger ofindiduel men inher individual women {nine forthe pte. magne ws oben and acto ading women not to ‘mary, ratte fick, motto bacome bonded ith man mgine us teaching lots fashion Iitertue, poet, histor ond at in womens studies courses, and teaching ou of polit determined by Lesbian pectin and sensiy.* ‘Writing about lesbians and lesbian art from a lesbian posi- tion that affirms and approves of lesbian existence is itself an act of advocacy, just as the number of dissertations and monographs and the amount of money Europe and the United States heap on ‘white male artists isa form of political as wel as cultural approval. Unless more lesbians are willing to accept the necessity of advo- cating our right to exist and our right to our cultural heritage, our history as well as our present and future will continue to be lost, denied, trivialized, and otherwise damaged. For itis impossible for lesbian history to come into a recog- nizable cultural space until lesbians are themselves more visible in their/our own time. Unless we insist on our lesbian selves, unless ‘we articulate ourselves visibly as such in the present, history will no doubt continue to erase us, and the lesbian historians of the future will be left with fragments and puzzles not much better than the ones we possess of the past today. Freeing ourselves from the self-censorship imposed on usis perhaps one of the most vital concerns contemporary lesbians face. One need only encounter cultural materials as otherwise dissimilar as the memoirs of French novelist and writer Marguerite Yourcenar or the New York Dai News interview with the comedian Ellen Degeneres to witness how per~ -vasive the necessity of lesbian self-erasure still i." And Ihave yet to center any academic institution or situation in the United States that is free of hiding, self-silenced, fearful lesbian: women who are unwilling to live heterosexualized lives , but still unable to publicly enunciate themselves as lesbian: ‘A significant historical turning point for lesbian history in the United States is the period during the seventies when les- bianism was chosen, celebrated, and culturally enunciated with- in the women’s liberationist organizing of secon-wave feminism. Although individual lesbians had declared themselves as such before 1970, it was within the public discourse of the women's liberation movement that lesbianism was verbalized, aestheti- cized, collectivized, and otherwise actively demonstrated out- side the confines of the personal, the private, the salon, and the bar. It was during the women’s liberation movement, and despite the efforts of mainstream feminism's self-defined heterosexualists, that lesbianism became, quite simply, an issue, and sought to eseape from the taxonomies of personal idiosyn- ccrayy, scandal, gossip, or cause for recantation within which les- bianiam had previously disfunctioned. Its not surprising then, that lesbian history has emerged in academic scholarship only since 1970, after the moment when lesbians, seemingly for the first time in history, announced them- selves as a self-recognized group—as a people who could, there- fore, havea history. Given that the very idea of history relies on the acceptance of a categorical imperative, of an understanding of a sense of continuity through formal arrangement of things or people—whether it be the concept of a nation (the United States of Ameria), a culture (the Japanes), a religion (Christian), or an ongo- ing production of related objects or forms (astracpaintng)—therecould be no history of lesbians if lesbians did not first declare themuelves decisively as an entity, asa people who exist across time ‘and space (and, relevant to the paradigm oflesbian identity, across nationalized and cultural boundaries), and asa people for whom collective identity is accepted as apt despite the invariable differ ences that exist between any members of an acknowledged group. ‘The personal and collective energies lesbians exerted on behalf of lesbianism during and within the seventies women's liberation movement also helped produce an increase in the number of women willing and able to live as lesbians.” At the same time, it would appear that the general cultural declaration made by lesbians in the United States during the sev- enties is still mot considered by many to be enough to warrant our inclusion in either history or popular consciousness. Or perhaps it was precisely because lesbianism was so loudly enunciated dur- {ng the seventies that subsequent historical aecounts have sought and continue to seck to diminish it. I base this assertion on the ‘erasure and minimalization of lesbians and lesbianism from his- accounts of the seventies; in particular I am concerned here with the heterosexualization of the feminist art movement. ‘The feminist art movement that emerged in the United States during the 1970s has yet to be historicized or otherwise recognized with any degree of scholarship or other forms of cul- tural attention equivalent to the actual impact the movement has had on subsequent developments in American artistic practice, Rather than expand this argument, I would like to address a few instances of cultural attention that have been paid to the feminist art of the seventies in order to situate the problem of lesbian erasure within the context of contemporary art history, as articulated through a few recent productions. As of 1996, there have been only two museum exhibitions ‘organized in the United States that distnetly featured (and named as such) works produced from the feminist art movement of the 1970s: Division of Labor: "Women’s Work” in Contemporary Art (1995), which was organized by the Bronx Museum of Art and traveled to the ‘Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Serual Politics: dy toric Chicago's “Dinner Party” in Feminist Art History (1996), organized by the Armand Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los ‘Angeles. Both of these exhibitions refrained from demarcating the artistic energy of the seventies as an art movement and includ ed art from the eighties and nineties, a curatorial decision that minimizes the generative position of the seventies. Stretching the influence of feminism across three decades avoids announcing the first decade as the movement it was and therefore reduces feminist fart to a mere tendency. At the same time, however, the exhibi- tions inadvertently acknowledged the formative position of the seventies on subsequent visual products by the simple fact that the ‘earliest dates on the exhibition checklists were of works from the late 1960s and the 19705. The Serial Poles exhibition charted a more complicated and hotly contested art historical trajectory by situating dozens of women artists from the seventies, eighties, and nineties around one late-seventies feminist centerpiece: Chicago's Dinner Pary (1979). The curatorial and physical centrality allotted Ghicago forced more than a few seventies feminists to refuse to participate in the exhibition, * Both Division of Laborand Serual Poies overly heterosemualized the feminist art movement of the 1970s, through the omission and miscontextualization of art made by and about lesbians. The eclipse of lesbianism appears in each of the exhibition titles. "Division of Labor” immediately suggests the heterosexualized division under which women are cast a8 men! domestic servants, housekeepers, and wives—a connotation cor roborated by a curatorial emphasis on art that interacts with the tradition of domestic crafts. By including 1980s and 1990s craft- inspired art by men, Division of Labor struck a curatorial position Propounding a male-female dialogue, while making no acknow!- edgment of either the dialogue or the argument between lesbian and nonlesbian women. Harmony Hammond was the only lesbian included in Disision ofLabor. Despite her public work promoting lesbian visibility as an artist, a writer, and an educator,” Hammond's exhibited Florpieces were discussed in the curator's exhibition essay exclu~ sively in the context of minimalism—specifically, as references toCarl Andre!* Indeed, as long as historians and critics insist on examining every artwork in relationship to the art of (more) famous (white) male artists, the possibilities for understanding lesbian art—indeed all art—will continue to be greatly curtailed. For the Serual Poiesexhibition, the heterosexualization of the title is itself form of cultural colonization, as SerulPolitstakes its title from Kate Millett's most famous book, a work that is itself an. indictment of heterosexuality. Abetted by the general reclama- ion of the phrase serual pots into a generally neutral ("it means something about gender, right?”) rather than heterosexual-crit- ical term, the exhibition disacknowledges both the lesbian authorship and lesbian implications of the eponymous book. Indeed, both exhibitions relegate lesbianism and lesbians to considerations. Although Serol Poliesineludes more les- bian artists (including Tee Corrine, Nicole Eisenman, and Cheryl Gaulke), the works are left unclucidated within the exhi- bition’s installation, stranded in the opaque confines of an idea of s0-called difference. Perhaps most significantly, both exhibitions ‘refuse to address the eritiquie that xeventies lesbian fe and its art practitioners posed to both patriarchy and heteroserualized women. The practice of offering just illustration or description— that is, including usually marginalized art-works but droppi their context—appears to be one of the most popular devices to preclude the real implications of all identity politics. Thus, peo- ple make a nod to lesbianism without acknowledging its persecu- tion, use the word gender but forgo discussing sexism, or write the ‘word racewhen the real issue is racism. ‘The only general art historical text on seventies feminist art currently in print, The PowerofFeminitAr, edited by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, refers to lesbians ty name on just 11 of its 318 pages." All of the direct, but nonetheless fleeting, refer- cences to lesbians are made by the four lesbians (inchuding myself) included among the eighteen contributors, as well as by one of the book's editors. One of the book's seventeen essays could and should have been devoted to lesbianism, given that lesbianism as, theory and practice was among the most divisive, explosive, and radical issues debated among seventies feminist activists and artists. The editors, as well as the lesbian and nonlesbian con- tributors, are aware of the central role lesbianism played in the social organizing of seventies feminism (especially in California, which is the book's primary geographical focus), given that all of the contributors (excluding myself) participated in the feminist movement of the 1970s and therefore had direct experience with the troubled cycle of enunciation and repression that framed lesbian cultural manifestations during that period. But the dif- ferent strategies of representation employed by visual artists are incapable of surfacing within historical accounts that refuse to investigate hegemony beyond the level of mention, that stay at the level of superficial nods to the complex histories held and sug- gested by words like lesbian (or woman or black). It appears that les~ bianism, one of the most critical engagements of seventies feminist art and activism, isstill unthinkable, undiscussible, and unpublishable twenty-five years later. Of course, a central problem for critics, intellectuals, and historians who have sustained engagements with cultural materi- als deemed irrelevant and not valuable by the dominant culture is that our efforts are not easily rewarded with the resources nec- essary to conduct our work. We are expected to do more work— find images and documents that do not appear in books and sift through archival material that has not been cataloged—but we are also expected to take for granted that we will receive less money to conduct our work. And frequently when we are given encour~ agement to do what we do best and are even willing to accept that the resources we have for our work amount to little more than the air we breathe and the time we number among the living, our efforts are still sabotaged. There will be no dramatic shift in the circumstances that constrict lesbian experience and lesbian cul- ture until the political circumstances that normalize misogyny and other forces of exploitation are dramatically altered. One of the most insidious formulations manufactured by the corruption of identity politics is the woman or the African American or the Chicano or the lesbian invited to present a culturally markedbody for the photo session, the academic panel, the cover of the college catalog, and other staged representations. Our images are used to mask the reality of our subordination. We know just how much we are being used when we attempt to speak and no one listens and when no one bothers to look at or speak of the work that we have produced. NOTES TO NOTES ON LESBIAN 1 Lesbian History Group, Nota Fasing Phase Recloiming Lesbian in Hito= 19, 1840-1985 (London: Women's Press, 1993), 3, 2 Barbara Smith, ed., introduction toHome Girls A Block Feminist “Anthobgy (New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1982), 1. Although it is now dated by over a decade, it remains a spectac- ular example of lesbian erasure given how otherwise acclaimed Tir Color Purplewas as both a novel and a film in the early 1980%. 3. Muriel Rukeyser, foreword to Berenice ASbott Photographs (New York: ‘Smithsonian Institution/Tenth Avenue Editions, 1990), 11-13. 4, The exhibition is documented in the Muse d’Art Moderne de la ‘Ville de Paris's catalog Glaude Cahun haotagrape Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1995). See also Frangois Leperlier, Claude Cahur, arte la ‘métarophose (Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1992). 5 Marilyn Frye, "A Lesbian Perspective on Women's Studies,” Wilf Virgin: Exays in Feminism 1976-1992 (Freedom, Calif.: Grossing Press, 1992), 53- 6 See Marguerite Youreenar, Dear Departed: A Memoir, trans. Maria Louise Ascher (New York: Farrar Straus Gimroux, 1991); and “Tabitha Soren, "Ellen's New Twist on TV.” New York Daih News, 24 November 1995, U.S.A. Weekend section, 4-6. 7 Even justlooking at he number of women who “became” lesbians during/within and subsequent to the women's iberation move~ ‘ment indicates that the dialogue on lesbianism that occurred with- in the movement had a direct effect in enabling women to identify themselves as lesbians. Although an oral history of the movement in the United States would supply considerable evidence, just a 10 ookat famous women offers an indicator. Consider, for instance, that Kate Millet, Robin Morgen, and Adrienne Rich were mar- ried and considered themselves heterosexual before the advent of the movement. In terms of the effect the women's liberation movement has hed on subsequent possibilities for self-identified lesbians in the ‘United States, I suggest that the gains in relative economic status the movement garnered for women have made it possible for more members ofthe next generation to choose to live sexually and eco nomicaly independent from men (especially if not exclusively, those of us who are white, middle-class, and college educated). Some ofthe seventies feminist artists who were approached by the curators and refused to participate in Saul Polis are Mary Beth Edelson, Harmony Hammond, Joyce Korloff, Miriam Schapiro, ‘Joan Snyder, and Nancy Spero. Hammond was on the editorial board for the "Lesbian Art and “Artiste” issue of Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, n0.3 (1977). She was also the curator of A Labin Show at 112 Greene Street Workshop in New York in 1978. For a discussion of a variety of contemporary lesbian art and artists, see Hammond's "A Space of, Infinite and Pleasurable Possibilities: Lesbian Self-Representation, in Visual Art." In New Rimini Gritcim, ed. Joanna Fruch etal. (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 97-131. See Lydia Yea, "Division of Labor: ‘Women's Work’ in Contemporary Art." in the catalog for the exhibition of the same ‘name (New York: Bronx Museum of the Arts. 1998)s 17. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, Th Per of erin Art (New York: Harry. Abrams, 1994).