The Los Angeles Woman's Building

1727 N. Spring Street

In response to the exclusion of women from the largely male-gendered art world, a group of Los Angeles feminists (Judy Chicago, Sheila de Bretteville, and Arlene Raven) founded the Woman’s Building in 1973. For eighteen years, the Woman’s Building was central to the feminist art movement, offering a space that trained and supported women artists as well as acted as a community space for Los Angeles women. 

In 1973, the founders started the influential Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW), an independent feminist art program that would become the heart of the Woman’s Building programming. In November that same year, the FSW members joined with other L.A. feminists to renovate the historic Chouinard Art Institute building (at 743 S. Grand View Avenue, Los Angeles 90057) not far from Macarthur Park, and officially open the Woman’s Building. From then onward, the Woman’s Building dedicated itself to fostering “women’s culture” by not only teaching women the technical skills needed to become artists but also educating people about feminism and issues facing the community. 

1975

In 1975, the Woman’s Building relocated to its long-term site at 1727 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles 90012 in Chinatown. By the mid-1970s, the Woman’s Building was well known in the art world and was established as a radical space, attracting luminary feminist speakers, musicians and artists to hold talks, give performances and sponsor artistic productions and events. In addition to its art programming, it also held consciousness-raising sessions for artists and non-artists alike from the community in which women could engage in personal and political discussions about the impact of sexism and patriarchy on their lives. The feminist leaders at the Woman’s Building thought that all women from different races and classes had a shared “woman’s” experience that could be translated into education and artwork. An important part of its mission with the consciousness-raising sessions was to discuss and bring to light the prevalence of “taboo” problems facing women such as rape, domestic violence, incest, and prostitution. However, at the same time the Woman’s Building faced internal and external criticisms about its exclusion of the LGBT community and women of color from leadership positions. 

Although the Woman’s Building attempted to address its internal issues, by the early 1980s it faced a political climate that was increasingly conservative and hostile to feminism. In 1981, the FSW program, which had provided most of the center’s income from its tuition, was terminated. Following that setback, in 1982 the Building finally adopted an affirmative action policy for its Board, staff, and exhibiting artists, but by this point it was already facing financial crisis. During the mid-1980s, new leadership revived the Building at a high cost: in order to stay afloat it sought outside funding, distancing itself from its feminist origins in an attempt to appeal to mainstream donors. For example, in order to begin making a profit the FSW was converted into a for-profit print shop, the “Women’s Graphic Center” (WGC), with the aim of producing and selling art in place of the center’s original educational mission. The WGC went bankrupt in 1990 and it was clear that the Woman’s Building no longer had the support of the art world in the “post-feminist” age. In July 1991, the Woman’s Building closed its doors; the presses, studios, and galleries dismantled and vacated. 

Today, its site at Spring Street is decorated with graffiti and surrounded by warehouses. The Woman’s Building attempted to create a space for women to gain access to the mainstream art world and sought to cultivate a feminist artistic experience. Although the Building did establish a legacy of feminist art, the art world remains a site of gendered inequality for women, pointing to the ongoing need for projects fostering women artists. Interestingly, in the context of today’s “post-feminist” framework, such a project would most likely face the same challenges and lack of support that the Woman’s Building did during the 1980s and 90s. It is worth a visit to the historic Building if only to contemplate its illustrious history, what little physical evidence of that history remains, and what still needs to be done in the pursuit of equality. 

Today

For More Information

Anderson, Ruth Ann, Elizabeth Canelake, Sue Maberry, Susan Silton, and Terry Wolverton. "Woman's Building History." The Woman's Building. <www.womansbuilding.org>.

Finkel, Jori. "Remembering the Landmark Woman's Building." Los Angeles Times. N.p., 15 Jan. 2012.  <http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/15/entertainment/la-ca-pst-womans-building-20120115>.