Especially for early-career researchers, this symposium invites responses to the question: What does it mean to study the work of women artists at this time?

Fifty years ago, art historian Linda Nochlin’s provocation, ‘Why have there been no great female artists?’ (1971), heralded an intervention into traditional, male-dominated art history. In the time since, many important exhibitions, books, articles, and research projects have sought to shift women from the margins to the centre of art discourse.

One key challenge for researchers and curators of women artists within this context has been the risk of further marginalising women artists by approaching them as a unitary category defined by their gender. However, women artists remain a vital category for study and engagement due to the historical under-representation of their work in collections and the influence of the art market. Today new approaches to studying and presenting women artists’ careers and legacies that engage with these tensions in innovative ways is a significant step towards better understanding their work and creating change.

We welcome contributions on topics including but not limited to:

• Curatorial models and approaches
• New research methodologies
• Feminism and activism
• The role of the canon
• Archives and collections
• Genre and hierarchies
• Power and agency

How to submit a proposal
We welcome proposals for 15-minute papers. Please email paper proposals of no more than 200 words, along with a 150-word biographical note, and the subject line ‘Observations Symposium’ by 15th April 2022 to curators@ngv.vic.gov.au