Jelena Petrović: Feminist Art Practice: The Temporary Zone of (Non-)participation

Wednesday, December 9, .2015. at 7 pm
BAZA, Adžijina 11, Zagreb

In the context of debates on feminist practices in art, I would like to indicate the necessity of linking radical feminism or the feminist avant-garde of the 1970 to the feminist politics that brings us back today to the fundamental and universal questions of politico-economical as well as broader social emancipation. As for exploring museum materialism and art historical practice from the feminist perspective, it is clear that feminism must face the continued reproduction of patriarchate and the present-day forms of production – of the economy of the neoliberal body on the one hand, and the political in activist art on the other. The “trouble” with the festivalization of feminism and the critique of feminist activism in art is that they lead to the (falsely) antagonized, binary positioning in today’s society: individual vs. collective, private vs. public, aesthetical vs. political (which is identified with the ethical), material vs. discursive, rational vs. affective... What does it actually mean to overcome these post-ideological oppositions, to modify the feminist paradigm in the direction of uni-categorization, to (re-)claim public space, to produce feminist curatorial practices and art, and to create a “common stage” for the new ideological framework of emancipation and activism in art? How do we face the materialist concept of the recent past and the issue of neoliberal institutional bodies when speaking of feminism in art? And why do we always do that separately and alternately with regard to the socio-historical circumstances of our time, accepting false (post-)ideological choices? And finally, can we speak about that (self-)critically?
Jelena Petrović

Jelena Petrović is a feminist theoretician of activist practices, active in the field of art. She is a (co-)author of various research papers, publications, art-theoretical events, exhibitions and projects involved with the (post-)Yugoslav area, its feminist history, politics of remembrance, artistic and curatorial practices that aim at developing new epistemological models for the production and engagement of knowledge. Co-founder and member of the feminist curatorial group Red Min(e)d. Currently teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

programme editor: Vesna Vuković