ABSTRACT
The malaise that gripped the avant-garde in the late 1960s was dispelled for one group of artists, who embraced a new, positive cause, namely feminism. Feminism surfaced in the art world around 1969, when women artists formed consciousness-raising groups in which, as Faith Wilding remarked, "each woman shares and bears witness to her own experience in a non-judgmental atmosphere." The first generation of feminists, that is, the generation of the 1970s, was labeled "essentialist." Essentialist iconography was only one topic of discussion among feminists. Feminists favored performance art because it suited their urgent need to voice their concerns as women, because it engaged the public more immediately than painting and sculpture did, and because collaboration was often involved. Feminist art critics also brought neglected women artists to artworld attention. Feminism needed its heroines and found early ones in Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois.
