ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION
This collection of texts is a republication of the feminist essays on women's art that Lucy R. Lippard wrote from 1970-1993. Moving Targets brings together in one volume what was first published in her books From the Center, Get the Message? and The Pink Glass Swan.
As a visual artist, I became aware of Lucy Lippard's work some time ago and was immediately inspired by it. Her book From the Center in particular has stayed with me for a long time, as it portrays women artists who are very significant to my own work. Lippard's texts are not only a testimony to her astute analysis but also an indispensable source for the women's movement in art, whose relevance remains unbroken to this very day.
However, many of her writings are now out of print and are difficult or expensive to obtain outside the USA. For this reason, the idea arose to republish her feminist essays in one big volume – with the aim of making these important texts accessible again and emphasizing their timeless relevance.
Together with Lucy Lippard and publisher Marco Siedelmann, I have realized this project, and, as editor, I am pleased to contribute to the visibility of feminist art and theory.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lucy Rowland Lippard is an American writer, activist, curator and one of the most respected critics of contemporary art. Lippard was among the first writers to address “dematerialization” in conceptual art, was an early advocate of feminist art, and remains one of the most insightful and strongest supporters of women artists. She co-founded both the publisher of artists' books Printed Matter and the legendary feminist Heresies Collective. For the past three decades she has focused on land use, archaeology and local history. She is the author of more than 30 books on contemporary art and has received numerous awards.
She is one of two recipients of last year's “Susan C. Larsen Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Rabkin Foundation. The Rabkin Foundation honored Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic, and feminist curator and critic Lucy Lippard for “how we think about art and its social and political contexts”.
PRAISE FOR LUCY
Lucy Lippard is a continuous voice from the front lines of feminist art as it has evolved since the 1970’s. Her early writings remain insightful, relevant and influential to this very day. Moving Targets is essential reading for every student of contemporary art.
—Harmony Hammond, artist and author of Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History
Lucy Lippard’s writing about the work of women artists was a game changer. Her expansive view of what art can do, and her political activism in the art world and beyond have always inspired us.
—Guerrilla Girls
Lucy Lippard’s writing beats at the living center of criticism with absolute rigor, drive, clarity, unapologetic insistence, and intensity.
—Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic, New York Magazine
Lucy Lippard has been a hero of mine for a long time. Rather than accepting the terms of the art world, she has made her own way and found ways to keep doing it, to keep making it public in collaboration with other artists, writers, and activists. She is a radical who has survived. She has probably done more than any other writer to democratize the making of art and its reception in our time, and she continues to ask crucial questions about the relationship between art and life, artist and audience, and aesthetics and politics.
—David Levi Strauss, author of Photography and Belief
In all of her various roles, Lucy Lippard has done nothing else than change the way we see and understand art in the world.
—Terri Thornton, artist and curator at The Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, Texas
Pretty much any -ism past 1970 has been defined and shaped by her writing.
—Veronica Roberts, John and Jill Freidenrich Director, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University