"Criticizing Art" Chapter 2: pg. 43-62

This portion of chapter 2 mostly looks at underrepresented groups of people in art history and the art community including women, people of color, and those that identify as LGBTQ.  The chapter begins by looking at feminist artists and specifically details some of the work of the Guerilla Girls, an anonymous group of female artists, critics, and historians who made public service announcements (as well as engaged in other activities) to promote recognition of the discrimination and sexism inherent in the art world.  

Guerilla Girls, Inc., 2005

The chapter goes on to discuss how women artists are not necessarily feminists, it must be a conscious choice to use one's art to address the inequalities that exist between the sexes.  During the transitional period where modernism began to become postmodernism, feminists called for "an expansive pluralistic approach to art making, including the use of narrative, autobiography, decoration, ritual, and craft-as-art.  

Next, the reading looks at Fred Wilson, who through his work, encouraged people to think about how museums often fail to represent art of racial and ethnic minorities.  In the 1990s, Wilson created an exhibition where, for example, he put steel shackles amidst silver cups and vases and placed a whipping post in a display of Victorian furniture.  Inspired by Wilson's work, museum curators created questions for visitors to ask themselves when visiting any museum, like "For whom was this piece created?" and "Who is represented?".  

In the last section, specifically gay activists and artists are looked at.  It observes that many of the members of these groups have reclaimed the word "queer" as a way of being confrontational towards people who might use the word as a derogatory term, and as a way to bring more attention to LGBTQ issues and discrimination.