The book explores how the lives and communities of artists and their artworks intersect. It focuses on paintings, installations, photographs, batik, and performance art from Turkey between 1973 and 1998. Covering transnational networks, political alliances, and ethnic communities, it reveals bonds of familial, professional, and friendly relations.
Art, Feminism, and Community: Feminist Art Histories from Turkey, 1973-1998, is a remarkable tapestry of granular stories about art and feminism. Ceren Özpinar, through a relational reading of works by several major artists vis-à-vis their subjectivities shaped and moulded by artistic, social, and political environments, offers a powerful alternative to Turkish art histories. By situating artists and artworks in assorted communities, Özpinar highlights historical contexts and connections alongside instances of gender, ethnic, class, or political oppression and othering the artists faced and reacted to in their art. This is a history of artworks inflected with feminisms at its best.