How Gender Open Up Horizons: Feminist Interventions in Art History

This article combines the progress of Western feminist art history with contemporary art cases at home and abroad, attempting to go beyond the popular identity politics perspective when discussing gender issues today, and explore the theoretical potential of feminism in the field of art in the post human context. The first part of the thesis focuses on the 1960s and 1970s in America when the feminism became present in art world. American feminist art exposed the myths in formalist theory in a singular view, driving the reflection on modernity. The second part focuses on the changes in feminist intervention in art in the context of French theory’s “travel” in English world during the postmodern period. With the linguistic shift of subjectivity theory, feminism has been incorporated into identity political discourse, reflecting on the meaning of discourse and text in art history while also exacerbating division and conflict beyond its original intention. The third part combines contemporary new materialism and post human thought to consider how feminism from a post human perspective can stimulate new potential for differentiation and coexistence.