Alexis Hunter (1948-2014)

A radical and provocative artist fighting for social change, Alexis Hunter was featured in multiple exhibitions on feminist art curated in the 1980s by the famous art critic Lucy Lippard, alongside artists such as Jenny Holzer and Mary Kelly. A Young Polynesian Considers Cultural Imperialism Before She Goes to the Disco is a photographic narrative sequence, the most iconic of Hunter’s output. Over a series of twelve closely-cropped vignettes, the artist portrays a young woman trying on jewellery. Using the bright saturated colour of commercial advertising, Hunter seeks to evoke the tropes of consumerism – yet unlike the smiling, self-satisfied models of commercial advertising, the subject is sullen and distrustful. Exploring the intersection between racial and cultural identities, this work is a historical document of the passions and tensions of activist art.