TFAP@CAA: Sonic Art and Activism: Exploring the Ties between Feminist Art and Popular Music

How many members of the feminist art community know about the music criticism of artists like Lorrain O’Grady adn Mary Harron? Or journalist and Redstockings co-founder Ellen Willis? Or the art criticism of musician Kim Gordon?  All of whom were writing in the era of Lydia Lunch, Cosey Fanni Tutti, DISBAND, and Linder — just to name a few.   Renowned women directly tapped into the alternative music and art scenes of feminism’s second wave.  And many of today’s most compelling contemporary feminist figures — from Riot Grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna to the LTTR collective to the electro-shock-rocker Peaches — have deep, seamless ties to both the art and music worlds.  This panel proposes to speak to the histories and connections between contemporary feminist art and popular music, and the utility of the joyful, critical, and insistently embodied approach to culture found in the resulting discourse.