Rereading by Françoise d'Eaubonne of canonised works

Histoire de l’art et lutte des sexes (Art History and the Gender Struggle) was published in 1978 by Françoise d'Eaubonne. In this work, the pioneer of ecofeminism draws on numerous recognised, canonised works to develop an interpretation informed by her feminist convictions. Her passionate, erudite and iconoclastic tone draws on the debates of her time, linking them to a social and Marxist history of art and numerous disciplines, to decipher the position of women in representations. She focuses specifically on the position of artists in the field of art, in relation to their patrons, the sexual morality of their time (she was also a member of the Front Homosexuel d'Action Révolutionnaire), etc. We will look at a few examples from this prolific author to understand the pleasure of looking and analysing in a different way, while tracing Françoise d'Eaubonne's career. 
Discussion moderated by Fabrice Bourlez and Madeleine Planeix-Crocker as part of the Troubles, Alliances and Aesthetics Chair.

Fabienne Dumont is a professor of contemporary art history at Jean Monnet University in Saint-Étienne and an art critic specialising in feminist, gender and queer issues from a cultural, social and political perspective.
Her publications include: Des sorcières comme les autres – Artistes et féministes dans la France des années 1970 (PUR, 2014), the anthology La rébellion du Deuxième Sexe – L’histoire de l’art au crible des théories féministes anglo-américaines (1970-2000) (Les presses du réel, 2011), two collective works on postcoloniality in France and women workers in Brittany and elsewhere, two books on Nil Yalter in 2019 (a monograph published by MAC VAL and a book of interviews published by Manuella Éditions/Aware), a book of artists' perspectives on Alice Neel (ER Publishing) and the expanded reissue of Françoise d'Eaubonne's Histoire de l'art et lutte des sexes [1978] by Presses du réel in 2025.

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