What Can Hungarian Woman Artists Do in a Neoliberal World Order?

After the collapse of the communist regime in Hungary in 1989, women had more opportunities to become artists than they did before (when gender equality was proclaimed but not practiced). The number of woman art students increased and in the mid-nineties some artists started raising issues that western feminist artists had dealt with previously. After promising beginnings on the way towards gender equality, however, feminist development stopped ? not just in the field of art but in all of society. Since today civil life is becoming increasingly limited, art is becoming more and more introverted. Under these circumstances there are no activist-feminist artists and very few artists even reflect on the actual state of affairs. However, a female point of view appears, even if in a gentle way, in the works of the younger generation. Most female art students strive to become artists and remain “women” at the same time. This is an unconscious decision, most of the time ? they usually deny everything when “accused” of being feminists.This paper presents examples of the diverse artistic strategies of three generations. The examples focus on representations of female bodies that reflect ‘traditional’ women’s roles. Marianne Csáky a feminist artist of the nineties, abandoned her feminist issues for the sake of researching her multi-layered personal identity, but her interest in creating pictures focusing on women’s sexuality remained. In her watercolours accompanied by texts, emerging artist Barbara Guttman counterpoints the topic of women’s sexuality and bodily experience with the view of a traditional painter. In the most recent stage of her consistent program of painting women’s issues, Andrea Dudás is concerned with the provocative theme of artificial insemination. In her photo series, Sári Ember attempts to link women of different generations together through the realm of aesthetics.