Postmodern feminisms: Problematic paradigms (Art criticism)

In 1995 Frances Borzello claimed that feminist art criticism had 'just touc hed the national curriculum with its fingertips'. [1] Over the last five ye ars constant challenges to curriculum provision have all but resulted in a loss of contact as educators pull back into 'safe' places and away from the edges where feminist art practices were just starting to take hold. Clingi ng to 'safe' practices has meant the affirmation of formalist modernist ort hodoxies which have fostered a restricted canonical patriarchal approach to the subject. The recent publication of the 'Manifesto for Art' 1999 which calls for a postmodern view of art with an emphasis on 'difference, plurali ty and independence of mind' can, all too easily, be read as a panacea, 'a postmodern solution to a postmodern situation'. [2] However, embracing post modern pluralism creates as many problems as it solves. Postmodernism often renders any feminist intervention superfluous in spite of new feminist art criticisms' insistence that the politics of feminism remains a vital eleme nt of both artistic practice and critical discourse. While agreeing that ar t education urgently needs to review its complicity with high Modernist val ues, we suggest that there are dangers in uncritically accepting a postmode rn view of education. Surely postmodernism renders any blueprint for change problematic. This paper does not provide answers, rather it raises questio ns in order to encourage teachers to reflect upon existing practices with a view to identifying what is still missing and why. It sets out to interrog ated implications for pedagogy, educational policy and social transformatio n of the contemporary academic preoccupation with postmodernism.