Extrapolating influence: the challenges of mapping the history of arc and artemisia galleries, Chicago (1980-1985)

Abstract

Digital mapping has become an essential tool in my research assessing the historical legacies of the Chicago-based women artists’ collectives ARC Gallery (1973-to the present) and Artemisia Gallery (1973-2003), which were founded to promote greater visibility of female artists at a moment when mainstream institutions ignored their contributions. When first writing about each gallery’s history ten years ago, I argued that each organization participated in a national feminist art network. My maps undermined this premise by revealing that the historical narrative is in fact a Midwestern one. This corrective is important, yet may have the unintended consequence of diminishing ARC and Artemisia’s importance in a discipline where artistic circles at national and global levels hold greater weight than the regional and local.