The feminist art movement of the 1970s set off an explosion of artmaking and analysis that still reverberates in the art world today, and the Woman's Building in Los Angeles was one of the major centers of activity. Through this site, you will find out more about its history, programs, projects, and the women behind the vision.
The Woman’s Building is proud to announce the publication and launch of an electronic book (e-book), From Site to Vision: the Los Angeles Woman’s Building in Contemporary Culture, that documents the history and legacy of the Woman’s Building, a public center for women’s culture that was a powerful symbol of the feminist art movement in Los Angeles and around the world.
Advance Praise for the book:
"A powerful antidote to "official" histories of feminism, this collection foregrounds the recollections of those who actually made the Woman's Building. These are the voices we need to hear: funny, rueful, contradictory, intelligent, and unrepentantly utopian. This sort of archive fever is thoroughly contagious!"
— Catherine Lord, Professor of Studio Art, University of California Irvine
From Site to Vision offers a much-needed critical history of the Woman's Building in Los Angeles, one of the most important sites for feminist art theorizing and art making from the 1970s through the early 1990s. A range of essays by some of the most important historians, critics, and theorists of the period—from Lucy Lippard to Terry Wolverton, Arlene Raven, and Sheila de Bretteville—as well as essays by younger scholars reevaluating the importance of the Woman's Building define From Site to Vision as a crucial contribution to the history of the women's art movement.
— Amelia Jones, Professor and Pilkington Chair in Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Manchester
Our ability to remember and record are two essentially human activities that we should never underestimate or take for granted. Documenting our existence in words and actions from the most public and official stances and events to the most private dreams and disappointments is seminal to even having a history. Recouping any lost threads and reinserting them into the larger historical fabric is recognized by a contemporary global community as necessary and meaningful to any narrative of human achievement.
From Site to Vision: The Woman’s Building in Contemporary Culture is just such a recent feat. Edited by Sondra Hale and Terry Wolverton, this [e]Book offers a profound and critical examination of the Woman’s Building during the eighteen years (1973-1991) when it was the vital core of Los Angeles feminist art, culture and political activism. Written by many of the artists, writers, and critics who participated in the Woman’s Building, the essays clearly and lucidly recount the struggles, sacrifices and controversies as well as the breakthroughs and successes from the visionary hopes of Sheila de Bretteville for the future of feminist contributions to the groundbreaking performance art of Suzanne Lacy to specific concerns of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and education.
In remembering and recording the Woman’s Building, the book addresses an historical moment that was in danger of being overlooked. In [e]Book form it is easily accessible with links to images and the Woman’s Building website, making it a useful research source for scholars and students as well as a general public. It should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in the contemporary history of Los Angeles art, culture, and political activism, not just for feminists.
— Parme Giuntini, Professor of Art History, Otis College of Art and Design
Comments or questions: info@womansbuilding.org
Copyright. 1999-2007. This site was originally created by Ruth Ann Anderson, Elizabeth Canelake and Sue Maberry. Additional contributions by Susan Silton and Terry Wolverton.