Courtney J. Martin Books

Just as punk created a space for bands such as the Slits and Poly Styrene to challenge 1970s norms of femininity, through a transgressive, strident new female-ness, it also provoked experimental feminist film makers to initiate a parallel, lens-based challenge to patriarchal modes of film making. In this book, Rachel Garfield breaks new ground in exploring the rebellious, feminist punk audio-visual culture of the 1970s, tracing its roots and its legacies. In their filmmaking and their performed personae, film and video artists such as Vivienne Dick, Sandra Lahire, Betzy Bromberg, Ruth Novaczek, Sadie Benning, Leslie Thornton, Abigail Child and Anne Robinson offered a powerful, deliberately awkward alternative to hegemonic conformist femininity, creating a new “punk audio visual aesthetic”. A vital aspect of our vibrant contemporary digital audio visual culture, Garfield argues, can be traced back to the techniques and forms of these feminist pioneers, who like their musical contemporaries worked in a pre-digital, analogue modality that nevertheless influenced the emergent digital audio visual culture of the 1990s and 2000s.

A triumphant illustrated volume on the art of abstract sculptor Ruth Asawa, examining her contributions to modern art and education. Ruth Asawa is an artist of vital importance to modern art. Ruth Asawa: Citizen of the Universe, which accompanies the first public exhibition of Asawa’s work in Europe, introduces readers to Asawa’s work, including her signature hanging sculptures in looped and tied wire, and her pioneering education practice. It positions her expansive ethos—her self-identification as “a citizen of the universe” and belief that art education can be life enriching for everyone—as a catalyst for creative forward-thinking in the twenty-first century. Focusing on a dynamic and formative period in her life from 1945 to 1980, this book gives readers a unique experience of the artist and her work, exploring her legacy and positioning her as an abstract sculptor crucial to American modernism. It is a wonderful celebration of her holistic integration of art, education, and community engagement, through which she called for a revolutionary and inclusive vision of art’s role in society.