Artist-Parents in Contemporary Art

This book examines the increasing intersections of art and parenting from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, when constructions of masculine and feminine identities, as well as the structure of the family, underwent radical change. Barbara Kutis asserts that the championing of the simultaneous linkage of art and parenting by contemporary artists reflects a conscientious self-fashioning of a new kind of identity, one that she calls the 'artist-parent.' By examining the work of three artists-Guy Ben-Ner, Elzbieta Jablonska, and the collective Mothers and Fathers- this book reveals how these artists have engaged with the domestic and personal in order to articulate larger issues of parenting in contemporary life. This book will be of interest to scholars in art and gender, gender studies, contemporary art, and art history.

Barbara Kutis is Assistant Professor at Indiana University Southeast, USA.

1. The Artist-Parent Identity; 2. A History of Artistic Engagement with Parenting; 3. Superwoman, Supermother, or Polish Mother? Elzbieta Jablonska's Artistic Negotiation of Motherhood; 4. Guy Ben-Ner: Articulating the Artist-Father; 5. Mothers and Fathers: A Collective Artist-Parent Identity; 6. The Future of Artist-Parents in Contemporary Art