Semester of Graduation
Fall 2025
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
College of Art and Design
Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
This thesis examines the creation and evolution of feminist art exhibitions and collectives in the United States from the early 1970s through the 2020s. These exhibitions and the work they contain are analyzed alongside each wave of feminism that ran parallel to their existence. Beginning with the 1970s and Second Wave Feminism, Chapter One explores Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro’s Womanhouse in addition to Lucy Lippard’s Twenty Six Contemporary Women Artists and the work of other smaller collectives. Chapter Two explores the DIY initiatives and subversive ideologies of Third Wave Feminism through artist groups such as the Guerrilla Girls and Riot Grrl, and the serial exhibitions Bad Girls Part I and Part II at the New Museum in New York. Chapter Three highlights the intersectionality of Fourth Wave Feminism as characterized the 2007 blockbuster project Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and as well as revisionist exhibitions like We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965‑85 and Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960‑1985 that unearthed and drew attention to the voices which have gone unheard due to histories of exclusivity in the art world. This thesis assembles a cohesive story of the historical context in which feminist art evolved, and where it might go in the future.
Date
11-3-2025
Recommended Citation
Dauterive, Demi R., "“DO WOMEN HAVE TO BE NAKED TO GET INTO THE MET. MUSEUM?”: AN EXPLORATION OF CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST AND WOMEN’S EXHIBITIONS AND COLLECTIVES" (2025). LSU Master's Theses. 6266.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/6266
Committee Chair
Allison Young
Included in
American Art and Architecture Commons, Art and Design Commons, Contemporary Art Commons, History Commons, Women's Studies Commons