Identity/alterity re-de-constructed in repetition and difference

This essay offers a close reading of Verdi Yahooda's work Photo Booth Classic (1974–present), its presentation as artists’ pages in n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal, 17, January 2006, and in the exhibitions Said (London: Camberwell Space, 2008) and Now! Now! In more than one place (London: Cookhouse and Triangle Space, Chelsea College of Art and Design, 2016) organized by the Black Arts and Modernism project. The differences in format and presentation over time, as well as the making of this work, as an action performed by the artist in monthly cycles over forty years, are considered in relation to other artworks, the use of documentation as medium, and questions about feminism, ethnicity and Jewishness. The aim is to move beyond the ready identification of this work as simply another example of a woman artist's performance made as if self-to-camera, or as identity politics

Art criticism and the state of feminist art criticism

This essay is in four parts. The first offers a critique of James Elkins and Michael Newman’s book The State of Art Criticism (Routledge, 2008) for what it tells us about art criticism in academia and journalism and feminism; the second considers how a gendered analysis measures the “state” of art and art criticism as a feminist intervention; and the third, how neo-liberal mis-readings of Linda Nochlin and Laura Mulvey in the art world represent feminism in ideas about “greatness” and the “gaze”, whilst avoiding feminist arguments about women artists or their work, particularly on “motherhood”. In the fourth part, against the limits of the first three, the state of feminist art criticism across the last fifty years is reconsidered by highlighting the plurality of feminisms in transnational, transgenerational and progressive alliances

‘Other’ and ‘Not-All’, rethinking the place of the woman artist in ‘Contemporary Art’

This paper addresses the ways in which women artists in modernism were frequently marked as “exceptional” and “other” to mainstream configurations of modern art (until the 1960s) and how in debates about globalisation (since then) their very strong presence had come to signify a “not-All” – an unremarkable event, something to be eliminated from view, debate or discussion - even though for the first time in history women’s presence in the art world was nearing 40-50% of all exhibitors and women artists were most commonly taken to be the symptomatic examples of contemporary art. The transitional moment of both feminism and postmodernism is eclipsed in these constructions and debates about globalisation which use this distinction with modern art and thereby conveniently ignore feminism and postmodernism. Women artists become framed in a transnational and multicultural “Otherness” and the symptomatic example of contemporary art and globalisation for this reason and specifically without reference to feminist debates.The paper identifies a very important contrast in the reception of women artists as the first configuration (exceptional, rare, and “other”) continues to affect media and popular perceptions of women artists, while the actual remarkable and truly exceptional reality of the normalisation of women artists goes unremarked upon – i.e. is wiped from public consciousness and debates about globalisation in academic circles (a “not-All” to the dominant symbolic order – using a Lacanian concept of Zizek’s)

Feminist art manifestos/feminist politics

This article reviews 40 years of feminist art manifestos and those collected in the publication by the author, Feminist Art Manifestos: An Anthology

The politics and aesthetic choices of feminist art criticism

This article explores feminist art criticism from the point of view of aesthetics/politics in global contemporary art. It is based on the author’s experience as an art critic and founding editor of n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal (1998–2017). Reading articles published in the previous two decades both for the journal and outside it, it became possible to identify how subjects produce specific objects in art criticism that demonstrate different locations and standpoints in thought and how these align with criticism from broader feminist political theories. This is an exploration of the aesthetics/politics both in, about and beyond feminist art criticism. The methodology presented analyses feminist art criticism using a model of clusters of concepts that draws on Anne Ring Petersen’s examination of identity politics, race and multiculturalism from 2012. Feminist analyses in which this approach has been attempted are discussed: Sue Rosser’s 2005 analysis of cyberfeminism and Tuzyline Jita Allan’s 1995 discussion of black/womanist/African feminisms. The article identifies four types of feminist art criticism: liberal feminism, materialist feminism, feminist cosmopolitan multi-culturalism, and queer post-colonial feminism. The aims, methods and approaches of these tendencies are outlined to demonstrate the differences between them. The article concludes with a discussion about the futures of feminist art criticism

Feminist interpretations of witches and the witch craze in contemporary art by women

This article arose from my experience organizing the conference, Misogyny: Witches and Wicked Bodies, which was held at the ICA, London, in March 2015. My aim in facilitating this event, which featured Alexandra Kokoli, Lynne Segal and myself as speakers, was to consider feminist interpretations of the witch in contemporary art and whether historical images of witches can be regarded as ‘woman-hating’ or misogynist

Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms - 2 July 2018, Middlesex University

This event was organised by Katy Deepwell for the Create/Feminisms research cluster in the Visual Arts Department, Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, Middlesex University

Interaction of a mode-2 internal solitary wave with narrow isolated topography

This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through a Discovery Grant (MS), and the Government of Ontario through a Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology (DD). The experimental work was conducted at The University of Dundee by DD and MC with the aid of grants provided by The University of Dundee, the University of St Andrews, and the University of Waterloo.Numerical and experimental studies of the transit of a mode-2 internal solitary wave over an isolated ridge are presented. All studies used a quasi-two-layer fluid with a pycnocline centred at the mid-depth. The wave amplitude and total fluid depth were both varied, while the topography remained fixed. The strength of the interaction between the internal solitary waves and the hill was found to be characterized by three regimes: weak, moderate, and strong interactions. The weak interaction exhibited negligible wave modulation and bottom surface stress. The moderate interaction generated weak and persistent vorticity in the lower layer, in addition to negligible wave modulation. The strong interaction clearly showed material from the trapped core of the mode-2 wave extracted in the form of a thin filament while generating a strong vortex at the hill. A criterion for the strength of the interaction was found by non-dimensionalizing the wave amplitude by the lower layer depth, a/ℓ. A passive tracer was used to measure the conditions for resuspension of boundary material due to the interaction. The speed and prevalence of cross boundary layer transport increased with a/ℓ.PostprintPeer reviewe