Maria Elena Buszek, Ph.D., Professor of Art History in CU Denver’s College of Arts & Media (CAM) has a very busy schedule in March. That’s because Buszek is one of few subject matter experts whose research intersects feminism, punk music, and art history. Buszek will travel to the UK this March to present at two conferences in London—one at the Tate Britain and another at the University of the Arts London’s London College of Communication. 

“I think feminist art in popular music resonates with young people today because the connection between the two has only gotten tighter since the 1970s!” says Buszek concerning the interest in her research.  

Buszek will speak at the Tate Britain’s Women in Revolt! Radical Acts, Contemporary Resonance conference, taking place March 22nd and 23rd. The conference is organized in conjunction with an extensive exhibition exploring the second-wave feminism movement birthed during the 1970s, called Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK, 1970-1990. As Time Out London wrote of the exhibition: "This is art made on the margins, in an attempt to kick back at an unjust society. It’s not meant to look good on a millionaire's wall, it’s meant to change the world. And it did." During this conference, Buszek will present work from her current book project Art of Noise: Feminist Art and Popular Music Since 1977.  

Buszek says she will be joined by other scholars and artists who have been invited to “extend” the exhibition’s themes up to the present day. “I have been invited to present my research on the transatlantic networks of UK artists in the exhibition who came from the punk movement, such as artist Anne Bean, filmmaker Vivienne Dick, and musician Poly Styrene, and their American contemporaries,” she explains. 

Making the connection between the art created by punk feminists in the 1970s and 80s to today’s artists is something Buszek does a lot in her research and her classes here at CU Denver: “think about ways that Lady Gaga and Beyonce and Taylor Swift have embraced the term ‘feminist,’ and also increasingly platformed other women as influences and collaborators.” This is a strategy whose foundations Buszek believes were laid in previous decades. For instance, she references the 1990’s Riot Grrrl movement, which not only sought to revive punk feminism but also give credit to female punk predecessors who rarely got the attention they deserved. “A lot of those artists and musicians—like Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex, Gina Birch from The Raincoats, or Alice Bag from The Bags—never succeeded in piercing the mainstream, but were also largely erased from punk and post-punk histories,” explains Buszek. With her written work and lectures, Buszek is doing her part to remedy this erasure from history.  

 

Circling back to the mainstream popularity of Beyonce and Taylor Swift, Buszek says: “this history resonates because the punk generation planted seeds that lay dormant for a while, but have sprouted with a vengeance!” 

While in the UK, Buszek will also speak at the symposium Torn Edges: Punk-Art-Design-History hosted by the University of the Arts London’s London College of Communication. Her lecture entitled “Identity is the Crisis: Punk feminisms” will take place on March 20th. “Here, I will be presenting on the unique history, philosophy, and visual culture of feminist punk artists and designers, such as Bean, Caroline Coon, and Linder Sterling—all of whom are currently being rediscovered by the contemporary art world after decades of neglect,” says Buszek.