Several months ago, my colleague wrote an article about feminist art. The article is entitled How Art Fought for Women’s Rights and it gives an overview of the feminist art movement. It’s difficult to separate feminist art from feminism and the women's feminist movement in general. And, as we know, feminism isn’t a uniform ideology, nor a uniform set of ideas. There are huge differences among feminists and feminist artists. For example, liberal feminism (and feminist artists who accept this form of feminism) insists on equal opportunities for women and men (both in society and in the art). This approach is represented in the famous article written by art historian Linda Nochlin in 1971, entitled Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Still, there are many other movements within feminism that influenced modern political and social thought, as well as art. Second-wave feminism, radical feminism, postmodern feminism, post-feminism – these are all diverse range of opinions and ideologies within feminism. And, in this article, we will focus on radical sexual feminist women's art.

Dallas Contemporary has organized an exhibition entitled Black Sheep Feminism: the Art of Sexual Politics. The exhibition is curated by Alison Gingeras, and it examines the work of four radical feminist artists active since the 1970s. Joan Semmel, Anita Steckel, Betty Tompkins and Cosey Fanni Tutti each fearlessly confronted sexual ethics, gender norms, and the tyranny of political correctness; and all four artists faced censorship for the explicit sexual content of their work. So, these women's art is influenced by the radical sexual feminism whose approach towards sexuality or pornography is completely different from the one coming from liberal feminists. Opinions on the sex industry are diverse. Feminists critical of the sex industry generally see it as the exploitative result of patriarchal social structures which reinforce sexual and cultural attitudes complicit in rape and sexual harassment. Alternately, feminists who support at least part of the sex industry argue that it can be a medium of feminist expression and a means for women to take control of their sexuality. Obviously, those who are part of the radical sexual feminist art believe that female nudity celebrates women’s body and that their practice does not subjugate women to patriarchal oppression. The exhibition at Dallas Contemporary opened on January 16 and will be on view until March 20, 2016.

In this article, we present some radically sexual women's feminist art that must be remembered. In addition to the artists whose works is exhibited at Dallas Contemporary, we added a few other artists whose radical sexual women's feminist art should be remembered as well. Although radical feminist and women's art is facing criticism, artists who belong to this art movement are still deconstructing patriarchal structures of power and oppression, through their brave and unique artistic practices.

Editors’ Tip: Radical Gestures: Feminism and Performance Art in North America

As we already mentioned, feminism is quite complex movement, and feminist art practice reflects the complexity of the women's movement in whole. Certainly, the first feminist art practices were the product of more liberal approaches towards feminism, while later on, we witnessed a penetration of radical feminist thought into contemporary art practice. The art movement where radical feminism was popularized was performance art. Performance art was finally recognized as an art form in its own right in the 1970s. The book we recommend situates women's feminist performance art in the US and Canada in the social context of the feminist movement. Highlighting the important contributions of women artists, it shows that artists drew from feminist politics to create works.

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