Introduction

Abstract

In Meredith Monk's classic feature-length film Book of Days, time plays a central role in creating a Jewish narrative that is simultaneously inside and outside time. Monk gives us a glimpse into the Middle Ages through a twentieth-century lens, then reverses that lens to have her medieval characters look at the twentieth century through their own lens, changing the way we think consciously of time as the distinction between earlier and later. A madwoman and a young Jewish girl are conduits of time: The young girl has visions of the future; the madwoman sees all of history; yet they are understood only by each other. As the plague spreads across Europe, the visions of the madwoman and the Jewish girl remind us that the miraculous and the monstrous are dual forces that conspire to create a oneness and a continuity of life.

A dateline designating the All Time Most Significant Defining Moments in my development as a Jewish woman feminist artist has to include me as a young girl, standing in the Museum of Modern Art. It's 1953, and I am gazing in astonished wonderment at a fabulous huge wooden assemblage by Louise Nevelson, realizing "A woman made this!!!"

Fast forward to now, 2007, when I am privileged to participate, as the Consulting Editor, in bringing forth this issue of Nashim devoted to Jewish Women and the Visual Arts. I am especially delighted that the articles by and about our select group of scholars, critics and artists have come to the public at the same time as a number of other noteworthy exhibitions, publications and conferences on feminist art.

To give just a hint of the abundance to which I refer, there are the exhibitions "Global Feminisms," which marked the inauguration of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (BAM); "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution," at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles, which featured 119 artists from around the world; and "Identity Theft," featuring the early, pioneering work of Elinor Antin, Lynn Hershman and Suzy Lake at the Santa Monica Museum of Art; the recent constellation of conferences and symposia honoring Jewish feminist art historian Linda Nochlin; the publication of the anthology After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art, and so much more.¹

In her foreword to After the Revolution, Linda Nochlin writes:

After the revolution comes the reckoning. Exactly what has been accomplished, what changed? What individuals or groups, previously repressed or ignored, now come into the foreground, gain status and confidence?

Nochlin goes on to ask how the nature of "reality" itself has changed as a result of the continuing revolution in feminist art, and notes in response that a most profound result of revolution is that its results become assimilated and normalized to "become part of the unconscious fabric of our lives." Thus, she affirms, "The powerful presence of women artists within the world of contemporary art has become an accepted fact." Yet she warns us how important it is not merely to acknowledge this phenomenon, but to locate its genesis "within the context of the broader social and cultural revolutions."

If Nochlin specifies "black, gay, feminist and post-colonial" as exemplary categories to be considered in this context, I would assert that the activism and high numbers of Jewish women involved in the arts relative to their number in the population at large are a noteworthy phenomenon, as well as a matter of collective pride. Nashim has, in fact, been carrying out Nochlin's mandate since its inception, with its commitment to publishing articles on creative process and feminist art in the context of Jewish gender issues. We offer this timely issue of Nashim to be considered as part of the "reckoning" of feminist art scholarship and Jewish cultural criticism that abounds in these fruitful times.

Working on the materials in this issue of Nashim has brought up a number of ideas that energized my thinking or encouraged me in my work as an artist. Often these responses were set in motion by some personal cross reference that resonated for me.

In...