| With a heightened sense of responsibility for social concerns, artists in the 1970s begin to move beyond the analytic propositions of US conceptualists such as Joseph Kosuth, Sol Lewitt and conceptual groups like Art & Language, to a synthesis of interrogating the social, political, economic, and gendered systems historically used to oppress women and minority groups. The artwork of the U.S.-based Mierle Laderman Ukeles and the U.K.-based Mary Kelly's early work from 1969 to 1975 reflect central concerns of the women's movements and is well researched by scholars of art history, but I claim that the production by both artists at this early moment also acknowledges the work of social reproduction, if not directly referencing it in their practices. My goal is to renew interest in the discourse of social reproduction theory and the Wages for Housework movement championed by Silvia Federici and Mariarosa Dalla Costa in the early 1970s as being vital to the progression of women's interventions in the visual arts. This thesis is my endeavor at recovering those voices of Italian feminists that are underrepresented or missing entirely in the history of the international women's movement and canonical art history. |
