Wollstonochlincraft 1791-1971 (2016-)

A series of compound words generated by combining words from 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' (Wollstonecraft, 1791) and 'Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?' (Nochlin, 1791).

ANNABEL FREARSON, Masculinear (detail1), May 2017, <p><em>Masculinear</em>; installation at xero, kline and coma as part of group exhibition: <em>Decorative Dormitories for Sleep Workers </em>with Ami Clarke, Kirsten Cooke, Mer Maggie Roberts: 0rphan Drift, Dale Holmes, Michael Iveson, Tina Jenkins, Sharon Kivland, Mark Nader, Nicola Woodham</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Masculinear (detail2), May 2017, <p><em>Masculinear</em>; installation at xero, kline and coma as part of group exhibition: <em>Decorative Dormitories for Sleep Workers </em>with Ami Clarke, Kirsten Cooke, Mer Maggie Roberts: 0rphan Drift, Dale Holmes, Michael Iveson, Tina Jenkins, Sharon Kivland, Mark Nader, Nicola Woodham</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Masculinear (detail3), May 2017, <p><em>Masculinear</em>; installation at xero, kline and coma as part of group exhibition: <em>Decorative Dormitories for Sleep Workers </em>with Ami Clarke, Kirsten Cooke, Mer Maggie Roberts: 0rphan Drift, Dale Holmes, Michael Iveson, Tina Jenkins, Sharon Kivland, Mark Nader, Nicola Woodham</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Masculinear, May 2017, <p><em>Masculinear</em>; installation at xero, kline and coma as part of group exhibition: <em>Decorative Dormitories for Sleep Workers </em>with Ami Clarke, Kirsten Cooke, Mer Maggie Roberts: 0rphan Drift, Dale Holmes, Michael Iveson, Tina Jenkins, Sharon Kivland, Mark Nader, Nicola Woodham</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Throbvious, 2017
ANNABEL FREARSON, Throbvious detail, 2017
ANNABEL FREARSON, Wollstonochlincraft 17910-1971: Concrete Plastic installation view, October 2016, <p>Selected words from <em>Wollstonochlincraft 1791-1971</em> as part of the group exhibition 'Concrete Plastic' at LAM Gallery, Los Angeles, Oct 2016.</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Wollstonochlincraft 17910-1971: Concrete Plastic installation view, October 2016, <p>Installation of selected words from <em>Wollstonochlincraft 1791-1971</em> in 'Concrete Plastic' group exhibition at LAM Gallery, Los Angeles, October 2016. Seen here with <em>The rubber hand illusion (instruction piece)</em> by Steve Klee (2015-6).</p>
ANNABEL FREARSON, Wollstonochlincraft 1791-1971: front cover, 2017, <p>A booklet containing words selected by Linda Nochlin, published by Ma Bibliothèque (Sharon Kivland) in The Good Reader Series. See Words section for details.</p>
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ANNABEL FREARSON, fanatomy, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, yessence, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, abstractually, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, doomediocrity, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, consenterprise, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, deliveristic, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, becamerican, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, despotpourri, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, conversexual, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, Againsborough, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, cupper-class, 2016
ANNABEL FREARSON, dazzleader, 2016

1791  1971

A mirroring of dates and messages: the first from Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1791), followed nearly two hundred years later by Linda Nochlin in Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? (1971). The message is unambiguous: without the same freedoms and education as men, how can women achieve greatness? It is a structural and foundational issue; as foundational as language.

Wollstonochlincraft 1791-1971 forges compound neologisms from these two historic texts to reflect on our contemporary reality and dystopian future trajectory. Born of an atavistic recursivity within a digitised neoliberal realm, these bastards proliferate and gain traction.

1791 saw the peak of Romanticism, a period of absolute subjectivity and parsing of the world through the imagination. 1971 heralds the birth of neoliberalism and the digital age, marked by the Nixon Shock and creation of the relational database. Both post-revolutionary periods offer the illusion of freedom and mass productivity of individual expression through language, aesthetics and, now, data (what I have elsewhere called 'infomanticism'). Like the Fountains of Glory, however, this represents a sublime regurgitation of the same content, albeit in dazzling new configurations. While we are amused by our creations, the ideological infrastructure remains the same. Worse still, freshly packaged, it sells itself back to us.

 

To purchase a copy of the booklet Wollstonochincraft 1791-1971 published by MA BIBLIOTHEQUE go to: http://lightsculpture.pagesperso-orange.fr/sharon/publications.html

 


A sample of 'Wollstonochlincraft 1791-1971' words in animated form:

 

Wollstonochlincraft (in progress) from Annabel Frearson on Vimeo.

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