Self/Portraits: The Mirror, The Self and The Other. Identity and Representation in Early Women’s Video Art in Europe

In this chapter, the author discusses how the category of the self-portrait is significant to critically interpret and contextualise many relevant women artists and early video artworks, which engaged in and tried to defy some tropes and topoi of this genre from various perspectives. In this respect, video art became a tool to de-territorialise the genre of self-portraiture, as a means for female artists to actively position themselves in art history and to further challenge the art historical canon in general. Drawing from theoretical approaches by video, film and feminist authors and art historians as Rosalind Krauss, Laura Mulvey, Catherine Elwes and Marsha Meskimmon, this chapter includes the analysis of case studies by some of the most relevant European women video pioneers including Nan Hoover, Ziva Kraus, Marianne Heske, Elaine Shemilt, Tamara Krikorian, Klara Kuchta, Anna Valeria Borsari and Federica Marangoni.