| This thesis examines feminist performance artists Barbara T. Smith and Linda Montano, and the artists' respective use of biography as political statement in themes of ritual, nourishment, and caregiving. Through the specific analysis of Smith's Ritual Meal, Celebration of the Holy Squash, and Feed Me and Montano's Chicken Woman, 14 Years of Living Art, and Dad Art, one may see how these themes central to the human experience and are revealed through individualized feminist approaches to personal narrative. Smith and Montano's work is framed in the context of feminist artistic practices of the 1970s that utilize biography and ritual. The stakes of Smith and Montano's continuing contemporary practices are analyzed in terms of audience, space, and public. |
