Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Lower East Side: Post-punk feminist art and New York’s Club 57

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses the feminist art that emerged from New York City’s short-lived, post-punk venue Club 57 (1978–83), where music mixed with visual art, experimental film, performance and politics. A hub of New York’s ‘downtown scene’, Club 57 exemplified ways in which artists’ increasingly promiscuous experiments across media led them to abandon galleries and museums in favour of nightclubs, discos and bars. This tendency dovetailed with the practices of an emergent generation of feminist artists eager to both break out of the sexist art world and engage with popular culture and audiences. A look at the work of Club 57’s manager Ann Magnuson, the performances and collectives she organized there and at other downtown clubs and other significant women whose work Club 57 supported provides a snapshot of the feminist artists in post-punk New York City, many of whose art and activism continue into the present.