7 Famous Feminist Artworks

It’s the end of 2019 and women still struggle to feel truly equal with men in society. Of course, this depends hugely on the country you live it, your upbringing, your level of income and the worldview that you have, but the question of women and their place in society still remains relevant. But maybe some things have changed. Let’s take a walk down memory lane and take a look at some famous feminist artworks created in the 70s and 80s and see if they still remain relevant in 2019. Spoilers alert – they might.

1. Some Living Women Artists/Last Supper by Mary Beth Edelson

Mary Beth Edelson took the classic Last Supper painting and created a collage, in which she replaced the heads of men with those of women. And not just any woman, but female artists. For example in the middle of the college instead of Jesus we see Georgia O’Keeffe, who is a famous artist known as the mother of American modernism.

2. Semiotics of the Kitchen by Martha Rosler

Semiotics of the Kitchen is a 6-minute video created by Martha Rosler in 1975. In the video, Martha is standing behind a table with lots of kitchen appliances on it. She picks each appliance up and demonstrates how it’s supposed to be used in a rather frank and sometimes violent manner. Martha specifically chose handheld appliances so that they could be seen as extensions of a woman’s hand and herself. She also chose to make a video so that it would be shown on a monitor, a small box, symbolizing a box that women are put in, in the context of societal norms.

3. The Picnic at Giverny by Faith Ringgold

The picnic at Giverny deserves a special place in the world of feminist art because the whole idea was to flip the roles and show that women are much more than just someone to stand behind a good man.