A bold and strikingly illustrated record of women's art and feminism in Australia

Doing Feminism represents over 220 artists and groups with 370 colour illustrations punctuated by extracts from artists' statements, curatorial writing and critique. Tracking networks of art practice, exhibitions, protest and critical thought over several generations, Marsh demonstrates the innovation and power of women's art and the ways in which it has influenced and changed the contemporary art landscape in Australia and internationally. The images and texts are curated by decade and contextualised to provide a broad analysis of art and feminist criticism since the late 1960s. The result of many years of research in the field and the archive, Doing Feminism reproduces essays by key protagonists involved in the critical debates and theoretical positions of the day, including curators writing on exhibitions that signalled major change, especially for Indigenous artists. This extraordinary work presents one of the most comprehensive collections of material ever compiled on women and the arts in Australia. Marsh guides the reader through the struggles, contestations and achievements of women and feminism in the visual arts and argues that this is the doing of feminism with all its differences. It will become essential reading for years to come.

- Melbourne University Publishing (MUP)

DOING FEMINISM will be launched in Australia on Nov 2, 2021

Anne Marsh is a contemporary art historian and Professorial Research Fellow at Victorian College of the Arts. Before joining the University of Melbourne, she was Professor of Art History and Theory at Monash University.

Her books include LOOK: Contemporary Australian Photography since 1980 (2010) and Body and Self: Performance Art in Australia, 1969-1992 (1993, 2015).

GLIMPSE the performance, examines the moment of action of impact, the drama and thrill of painting, it invokes a relentless drive to break through, and inhale the unexpected.

ROCK "I have always felt a kinship with rocks, found comfort in the inevitability of stillness. Immovable calm, sculpted by wind and water, boulders, edifices - ancient monuments. Move,ents in time and space, the processes of life and death, embody and etch the earth" - Theresa Byrnes

THERESA BYRNES

I am not a gallerist nor business woman, I am an artist and thinker. My roots in painterly figuration exploded, to then mature in abstraction. At my core, I am an action painter. Always, contemplating my process to then choreograph to be performance. An action painter who believes all artists, all people need to be in action to stimulate social-change.