Author: Monika Fabijanska, Visual Arts Administration Program, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University. - Personal Website

Abstract: »In chapter 10, “To Censor or to Teach: Educational Reflections on a Foundational Exhibition,” Monika Fabijanska reflects on The Un-Heroic Act, a groundbreaking show she curated and the first exhibition that methodically surveyed the iconography of rape in women’s art in the United States, from 1968 to 2018. One artist featured in the exhibition, Naima Ramos-Chapman, challenged visitors to consider the question “Is there a way to talk about sexual assault that does not dwell on the brutality of the act itself on women’s bodies in a way that is treated as action or eroticized?”37 The Un-Heroic Act demonstrates that this is most certainly possible. Fabijanksa reviews the exhibition’s public programming and educational components, considering how women artists’ art about rape has been censored in the past and how an uncensored approach is key to art, education, and larger societal change.« (Source: Caldwell, Ellen C., et al. »Introduction: Gender Violence and Art History.« Gender Violence, Art, and the Viewer: An Intervention. Edited by Ellen C. Caldwell et al. University Park 2024: 17.)

Wikipedia: History of the Americas: History of the United States | Art: Visual art of the United States | Sex and the law: Rape / History of rape