Material Swirl: Finding the hidden narrative in an early Conceptual art compendium

Even as these books take stock of Lippard’s extended curatorial projects, they do so with the overt goal of placing her politics—in particular her feminist politics—front and center. Another concern, one that was raised with regard to Lippard’s practice in general, was whether she operated as an artist, rather than a critic or curator—utilizing other artists and their work as her “material,” which she assembled into configurations that ultimately served her own authorial voice. Bryan-Wilson opens by reflecting on a public conversation in 1971 at the Brooklyn Museum, where a group assembled to discuss the question “Are Museums Relevant to Women?” Using the trope of “relevance” as a red thread, Bryan-Wilson deftly moves through the various roles assumed by Lippard—not to mention the internal tensions that arise between, say, spending time as a devoted activist and as a devoted mother. In our own moment, Bryan-Wilson strongly suggests, the question of relevance remains crucial, for even while the contours of feminism ostensibly attain increasing finesse—the result of a much-heightened awareness of our critical, political, and feminist pasts—there is always the risk that perceived integration is, in fact, merely occlusion.