Heresies

The Heresies Collective was a group of New York-based artists, performers, academics, writers, and critics who published the influential feminist arts journal Heresies from 1977 to 1993.

The Heresies Collective was founded in 1975 by a loosely affiliated group of women active in the feminist art movement. Originally conceived as "a voice and a space (publication and school)," the first publishing collective formed in the spring of 1976.

Founding members included Patsy Beckert, Joan Braderman, Mary Beth Edelson, Harmony Hammond, Elizabeth Hess, Joyce Kozloff, Arlene Ladden, Lucy Lippard, Mary Miss, Marty Pottenger, Miriam Schapiro, Joan Snyder, Elke Solomon, Pat Steir, May Stevens, Michelle Stuart, Susana Torre, Elizabeth Weatherford, Sally Webster, and Nina Yankowitz.

Heresies was formally structured as multiple separate, autonomous collectives. Invited members made up the main or "mother" collective, which held regular business meetings, determined issues' themes, and administered the publishing business. Heresies' office staff were members of this group. Temporary editorial collectives oversaw the selection and development of each issue's content; participants may or may not have been members of the mother collective.

Heresies produced 27 journal issues from 1977 to 1993, with each centered on a particular theme, such as lesbian art, aging, or racism. Editorial collectives were formed through open meetings; these collectives identified themes, developed starting points, issued open calls for submissions, and selected the issue's content. (Source)

Publications

• Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, 27 nos., New York: Heresies Collective, 1977-1993, Log, IA.

• "Artrace: An Heretical Bored Game", Artforum, Feb 1980, pp 59-62.

• "From Cradle to Collective or Higher Than Hierarchies: The Horrors and Hopes of ... Henrietta Heretic!", Criss-Cross 11/12, Boulder, Mar 1981, pp 36-41.

• Events: En Foco, Heresies Collective, New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1983, 48 pp, PDF. Exh. cat. Exhibition.

Film

• The Heretics, film by Joan Braderman, 2009, 91 min. [1]

Literature

• Jack Burnham. "Patriarchal Tendencies within the Feminist Art Movement", New Art Examiner 4:10, Summer 1977, p 9.
• Francine du Plessix Gray, . "Women Writing about Women's Art", New York Times Book Review, 4 Sep 1977, pp 3, 18 .
• Grace Glueck, "The Woman as Artist", New York Times Magazine, 25 Sep 1977, pp 48-68.
• Kay Larson, "Lesbian Art: The Colonized Self", Village Voice, 6 Mar 1978, p 67.
• Nancy Marmer, "Art & Politics '77", Art in America, Summer 1977, pp 64-66.
• Marilyn Mizrahi, "Heresies: The Conscience of the Art World", Artworkers News 2:9, New York, May 1982, pp I, 15.
• Sally Webster, "Inside Heresies , Inc.", Women Artists Newsletter 2:9, Mar 1977, n.p.
• Jane Williamson, "Sister Publications-Record for a Decade", Ms. 40:1/2 , Aug 1982, p 50.
• Ellen Willis, "Lust Horizons-Is the Women's Movement Pro-Sex?", Village Voice, 17-23 Jun 1981, pp I, 36.

• Michelle Meagher, "“Difficult, Messy, Nasty, and Sensational” Feminist collaboration on Heresies (1977–1993)", Feminist Media Studies 14:4, 2014, pp 578-592. DOI.

• Amy Tobin, "Heresies’ Heresies: Collaboration and Dispute in a Feminist Publication on Art and Politics", Women: A Cultural Review, 30:3, 2019, 280-296, [2]

Links

• Heresies Collective archive, Rutgers U
• The Heresies Project, Bucknell U