Office Hours: Women Artists at Work in the Art World, 1945-1990.

This edited volume seeks proposals for original, unpublished essays exploring the understudied multifaceted roles of women artists who variously served as arts administrators, educators, program officers, curators, writers, and cultural organizers, respectively, in the United States after World War II until the 1990s. By foregrounding the structural, curatorial, and bureaucratic labor of women artists who worked within, alongside, and against the art world’s dominant frameworks, Office Hours aims to reframe the institutional histories and feminist art discourse in the second half of the twentieth century.

Although women artists have long played crucial roles in shaping cultural institutions—from museums and artist-run spaces to funding agencies and educational programs—their administrative contributions have often been overlooked or dismissed as peripheral to their “real” work and lives as artists. Recovering and prioritizing these records and historical narratives, this volume positions administrative labor as generative, political, and deeply creative sites for analysis. It addresses, on the one hand, how women artists’ administrative labor helped shape postwar art ecologies, networks, and infrastructures and, on the other, draws attention to the complex interrelations and mechanisms between women’s institutional labor and creative work, asking: How did such dual roles inform, inspire, or derail their aesthetics, politics, and cultural influence?

We welcome contributions that explore individual case studies, collective initiatives, or broader structural critiques. Interdisciplinary approaches that bridge art history, museum studies, feminist theory, archival studies, and labor history are especially encouraged.

Possible Topics Include:
Artists who held curatorial, education, or leadership roles in museums, non-profits, or government arts agencies
Feminist collectives and artist-run institutions (e.g., Woman’s Building, A.I.R. Gallery, Artemisia)
Race, gender, and class in institutional labor and access
Archival recovery of under-recognized administrative labor
Artist-organizers in public art, community art, and activist contexts
Intersections of teaching, caretaking, and feminist pedagogy
Institutional critique from within: working under/against systems of exclusion
Oral histories, letters, memos, and other documents of “invisible” work

We are seeking 8–10 contributors for chapters of 6,000–8,000 words. Proposals should include a 300–500 word abstract, brief bio (150 words), and any relevant institutional affiliations.

Please send proposals by October 15th to Helena Shaskevich (hshaskegmail.com) and Aliza Edelman (alizaedelmanmac.com).