The present article introduces and contextualizes early feminist artworks which emerged in the late 1960's up to the 1980's. It analyzes the historical circumstances which linked the artistic and social spheres, as well as the aesthetic and formal problems that came along with the artistic activist practice and its reception as a movement. The analysis will be based on the work of the North-American artist Barbara Kruger, who has produced fundamental pieces which consolidate feminist art. Kruger's work has a critical approach towards a large variety of subjects regarding women (violence, abortion, identity, social roles, aesthetics). The content of her work is engaged with important social matters and with the political scene at the period of its production, and it also bears a direct relation with the feminist theories of that period, reasons which allow for an analysis of both the artistic and the social-political contexts.
Barbara Kruger; Artistic Activism; Feminism; Contemporary Art