Introduction

This book examines the tensions and connections between feminist politics and sexualized femininities through changing understandings of what constitutes ‘critical’ art practice. It emerged from a desire to reconcile my own fascination with artworks made by women for whom heterosexual femininity is something to be performed rather than refused, with my commitment to feminist politics. I am struck by my own identification with the visual pleasures of artworks that employ the rhetoric, if not, as I will argue, the values of woman-as-fetishized-image. It was also prompted by my experience of teaching practice-based art, media and design students, many of whom find no conflict between the performance of highly stylized femininities and an emerging interest in feminist politics, specifically the shaping of femininity through contemporary culture.