This title was first published in 2003. The essay collection explores the conjunctions of nation, gender, and visual representation in a number of countries-including Ireland, Scotland, Britain, Canada, Finland, Russia and Germany-during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors show visual imagery to be a particularly productive focus for analysing the intersections of nation and gender, since the nation and nationalism, as abstract concepts, have to be "embodied" in ways that make them imaginable, especially through the means of art. They explore how allegorical female figures personify the nation across a wide range of visual media, from sculpture to political cartoons and how national architectures may also be gendered. They show how through such representations, art reveals the ethno-cultural bases of nationalisms. Through the study of such images, the essays in this volume cast new light on the significance of gender in the construction of nationalist ideology and the constitution of the nation-state. In tackling the conjunctions of nation, gender and visual representation, the case studies presented in this publication can be seen to provide exciting new perspectives on the study of nations, of gender and the history of art. The range of countries chosen and the variety of images scrutinised create a broad arena for further debate.

Uniquely covering literary, visual and performative expressions of culture, this volume aims to correlate the conjunctions of nation building, gender and representation in late 19th and early 20th century China and Japan. Focusing on gender formation, the chapters explore the changing constructs of masculinities and femininities in China and Japan from the early modern up to the 1930s. Chapters focus on the dynamism that links the remodeling of traditional arts and media to the political and cultural power relations between China, Japan, and the Western world. A true tribute to multidisciplinary studies.

This important new book examines contemporary art while foregrounding the key role feminism has played in enabling current modes of artmaking, spectatorship and theoretical discourse. Contemporary Art and Feminism carefully outlines the links between feminist theory and practice of the past four decades of contemporary art and offers a radical re-reading of the contemporary movement. Rather than focus on filling in the gaps of accepted histories by ‘adding’ the ‘missing’ female, queer, First Nations and women artists of colour, the authors seek to revise broader understandings of contemporary practice by providing case studies contextualised in a robust art historical and theoretical basis. Readers are encouraged to see where art ideas come from and evaluate past and present art strategies. What strategies, materials or tropes are less relevant in today’s networked, event-driven art economies? What strategies and themes should we keep hold of, or develop in new ways? This is a significant and innovative intervention that is ideal for students in courses on contemporary art within fine arts, visual studies, history of art, gender studies and queer studies.

Newsweek calls him “exhilarating and deeply engaging.” Time Out New York calls him “smart, provocative, and a great writer.” Critic Peter Schjeldahl, meanwhile, simply calls him “My hero.” There’s no one in the art world quite like Dave Hickey—and a new book of his writing is an event. 25 Women will not disappoint. The book collects Hickey’s best and most important writing about female artists from the past twenty years. But this is far more than a compilation: Hickey has revised each essay, bringing them up to date and drawing out common themes. Written in Hickey’s trademark style—accessible, witty, and powerfully illuminating—25 Women analyzes the work of Joan Mitchell, Bridget Riley, Fiona Rae, Lynda Benglis, Karen Carson, and many others. Hickey discusses their work as work, bringing politics and gender into the discussion only where it seems warranted by the art itself. The resulting book is not only a deep engagement with some of the most influential and innovative contemporary artists, but also a reflection on the life and role of the critic: the decisions, judgments, politics, and ethics that critics negotiate throughout their careers in the art world. Always engaging, often controversial, and never dull, Dave Hickey is a writer who gets people excited—and talking—about art. 25 Women will thrill his many fans, and make him plenty of new ones.

Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) was one of the most important Jewish artists of modern times. As a successful illustrator, photographer, painter and printer, he became the first major Zionist artist. Surprisingly there has been little in-depth scholarly research and analysis of Lilien's work available in English, making this book an important contribution to historical and art-historical scholarship. Concentrating mainly on his illustrations for journals and books, Lynne Swarts acknowledges the importance of Lilien's groundbreaking male iconography in Zionist art, but is the first to examine Lilien's complex and nuanced depiction of women, which comprised a major dimension of his work. Lilien's female images offer a compelling glimpse of an alternate, independent and often sexually liberated modern Jewish woman, a portrayal that often eluded the Zionist imagination. Using an interdisciplinary approach to integrate intellectual and cultural history with issues of gender, Jewish history and visual culture, Swarts also explores the important fin de siècle tensions between European and Oriental expressions of Jewish femininity. The work demonstrates that Lilien was not a minor figure in the European art scene, but a major figure whose work needs re-reading in light of his cosmopolitan and national artistic genius.

Repeatedly and powerfully throughout Cuban history, the mulata, a woman of mixed racial identity, features prominently in Cuban visual and performative culture. Tracing the figure, Alison Fraunhar looks at the representation and performance in both elite and popular culture. She also tracks how characteristics associated with these women have accrued across the Atlantic world. Widely understood to embody the bridge between European subject and African other, the mulata contains the sensuality attributed to Africans in a body more closely resembling the European ideal of beauty. This symbol bears far-reaching implications, with shifting, contradictory cultural meanings in Cuba. Fraunhar explores these complex paradigms, how, why, and for whom the image was useful, and how it was both subverted and asserted from the colonial period to the present. From the early seventeenth century through Cuban independence in 1899 up to the late revolutionary era, Fraunhar illustrates the ambiguous figure's role in nationhood, citizenship, and commercialism. She analyzes images including key examples of nineteenth-century graphic arts, avant-garde painting and magazine covers of the Republican era, cabaret and film performance, and contemporary iterations of gender. Fraunhar's study stands out for attending to the phenomenon of mulataje not only in elite production such as painting, but also in popular forms: popular theater, print culture, later films, and other media where stereotypes take hold. Indeed, in contemporary Cuba, mulataje remains a popular theme with Cubans as well as foreigners in drag shows, reflecting queerness in visual culture.