Marjorie Strider Dramatic Gestures

Before Pop Art, before Feminist Art, before Performance Art, there was Marjorie Strider, who heralded them all but refused to be pigeon holed into just one. Her Triptych (1963) inspired the infamous International Girlie Show at Pace Gallery, New York, which alongside works by such artists as Warhol and Lichenstein, signaled the official beginning of Pop Art. But as Raphael Rubenstein notes in his introduction, "while her Pop paintings of the early 1960s certainly deserve the renewed attention they are receiving, this should be a mere prelude to an appreciation of Strider's work as a whole, and a wider recognition of her substantial, continuing artistic achievement." Showing in New York galleries before female artists were embraced, Donald Kuspit describes Strider's work as an inspired example of woman's insurgency as artistically radical as the Women's Movement is socially radical. When she proclaimed the art world as narrow and elitist, she took her work to the streets, creating site-specific installations and three-dimensional framing performances that spoke directly to the public. She has even been credited with coining the term Performance Art as it is used to reflect this genre today. Strider refuses to be categorized, as does her art, but her contribution cannot be ignored or trivialized in spite of this. It is too big, too passionate and too off the wall to be insignificant, whether it plays by the rules, or do1890206326Kuspit, Donald is the author of 'Marjorie Strider Dramatic Gestures' with ISBN 9781889097633 and ISBN 1889097632.