Konstnärliga forskarskolan Workshop: How Is to Be Done? Feminism, Art, Capitalism, 1 ECTS-credit
Konstnärliga forskarskolan Workshop: Hur göras? Feminism, Konst, Kapitalism, 1 högskolepoäng
Course Code
KOKO024
Education level
Third cycle course
Approval
This course was established 2015-06-08. The course syllabus was approved 2015-06-08 by the board of Konstnärliga
forskarskolan, Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Lund University. The course syllabus is valid from 2015-06-08.
Course description
The workshop is intended to explore possible answers to this question: what would constitute a politically meaningful
engagement of feminism with art in a capitalist society as shaped today? The workshop is held in Stockholm during 12-13 June
and course leader is Angela Dimitrakaki, a writer and Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art History and Theory at the University
of Edinburgh.
Advancement in relation to the degree requirements
The course can normally be included as a part of a general degree at third cycle level.
Entry requirements
Acceptance at third cycle level education in the area of the arts, or equivalent.
Learning outcomes
After completed course the student should be able to:
• Outline what would constitute a politically meaningful engagement of feminism with art in a capitalist society as shaped
today
• Demonstrate the capacity to review and assess what definitions of the ‘contemporary’ feminism, both in historical terms
and in relation to new his or her own artistic research
• Demonstrate insight into how and if feminism has been appropriated by capitalism specifically in the art world
Assessment:
Learning outcomes will be assessed through a written portfolio assignment, describing the three most important issues the
student will bring forth in future research.
Course content & learning activities:
The workshop is intended to explore possible answers to this question: what would constitute a politically meaningful
engagement of feminism with art in a capitalist society as shaped today? Phrasing the question this way implies the following:
a) A shift from patriarchy to capitalism as the focus of feminist critique, without however suggesting that ‘patriarchy’
should be dropped from feminism’s critical lexicon. Rather, the intention is to highlight the significance of capitalism, as
a global mode of production, in regulating women’s lives and, according to data provided even by the World Bank, in
keeping most women in poverty. In addition, feminist scholars such as Nancy Fraser and Hester Eisenstein have argued
that capitalism has used feminism to its advantage. In further addition, a feminism against capitalism is necessarily a
feminism of the left, a materialist or even Marxist feminism. What is the potential in developing a synthetic line of
argument and action, overcoming a past ‘divorce’, given especially the appeal of Marxist art scholarship to artists at
present?
b) The possibility – and for some, certainty – that in 2015 feminist politics in the arts require urgent updating and cannot
merely replicate the demands articulated during the ‘70s, canonised as the golden age of ‘art feminism’ in the West. If
so, what new demands can feed into a draft programme for a contemporary feminism in art? Given that neo-liberal
capitalism operates globally, even if ‘expressed’ locally, can we advance a globally meaningful feminist counter-offensive
in art?
c) Feminism must re-introduce itself specifically as a politics. This implies both a feminist polis, a terrain of collective
participation where power and interests are addressed. Given however the ideology of atomisation in the arts, necessary
for the culture of competition that sustains the art world (in terms of sales, residencies, visibility etc), can feminism be
actually practiced rather than merely discussed and written about in the capitalist art world? What is a practiced
feminism as opposed to feminism as an idea in contemporary art?
The above clarifications hopefully outline an expanded framework of common exploration of interest across the spectrum of
subjects and identities that populate the contemporary art world. There will be an effort for the workshop to operate as a
research laboratory and participants are welcome to articulate their thoughts through various means, from imagining a
contemporary feminist manifesto to discussing artworks, exhibitions, texts and anything else that enriches feminist critique
in an art defined by capitalist relations of production – and consumption.
Grading system:
Fail (U) or Pass (G)
Reading list or other media:
 Angela Dimitrakaki (2013) ‘Postscript: What Is a Feminist Beginning?’ in Gender, artWork and the Global Imperative.
 Nancy Fraser (2009) ‘Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History’, NLR 56
 Marina Vishmidt (2013) ‘’Mimesis of the Hardened and the Alienated’: Social Practice as Business Model’, e-flux journal
43
 Angela Dimitrakaki and Lara Perry (forthcoming) ‘This Μoment: A Dialogue on Participation, Refusal and History
Making’ in Victoria Horne and Lara Perry (eds) Renewing the Feminist Critique of Art History, IB Tauris: London
 Precarias a la deriva (2005) ‘A Very Careful Strike – Four Hypotheses’, translated by Franco Ingrassia and Nate Holdren
 Kirsten Lloyd (2015) ‘Being with, across, over and through: Art’s Caring Subjects, Ethics Debates and Encounters’ and
Angela Dimitrakaki (2015) ‘Women’s Lives, Labour, Contract, Documents: The Biopolitical Tactics of Feminist Art, Act 2
and ½’, both from Angela Dimitrakaki and Kirsten Lloyd (eds) ECONOMY: Art, Production and the Subject in the 21st
Century
Course evaluation:
Course evaluation will be based on the portfolio assignment.
Examiner/s:
Ylva Gislén, Visiting professor at Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Lund University together with
Malin Hedlin Hayden, Senior Lecturer in Art History at Stockholm University. Malin's main fields of research include post war
and contemporary art, with a particular interest in historiography, analysis of concepts, feminisms, and display practices.
More on Angela Dimitrakaki:
Angela's academic research focus includes feminist and Marxist methodologies in art history; art and curating in relation to
labour and production (often as regards gender); and art in the social realities of post-1989 Europe. Currently, Angela is working
on identifying the rise of an economic subject in art after 1989 in an effort to contribute to a trans-disciplinary understanding of
art’s complex links with socio-economic processes. In 2013 Angela published the book ArtWork and the Global Imperative: A
Materialist Feminist Critique (ManchesterUP) investigating the impact of capitalist globalisation on the gender division of labour
in art-making and curating. In 2013 she also curated the exhibition ECONOMY (with Kirsten Lloyd) across Edinburgh (Stills) and
Glasgow (Centre for Contemporary Art). ECONOMY invited reflection on the fact that, so far in the 21st century, economic
relations shape every aspect of our lives and that art has the power to demonstrate how this happens. Angela is also
Corresponding Editor of HM: Research in Critical Marxist Theory and Researcher with the Art Globalisation Interculturality
Group at the University of Barcelona.