Nancy Angelo

Nancy Angelo (born October 8, 1953 in Carson City, Nevada, USA) is an organizational psychologist and formerly a performance and video artist who took part in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles. As an artist, she is best known for co-founding the collaborative performance art group The Feminist Art Workers in 1976 with Candace Compton, Cheri Gaulke, and Laurel Klick.

After studying photography in Denmark and attending San Francisco Art Institute, Angelo moved to Los Angeles in 1975 in order to enroll in the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman’s Building. She took an active part in refurbishing the old three-story structure on North Spring Street near Chinatown that housed the Woman’s Building and making it suitable for learning and practicing art.

Career

Feminist Art Workers

Shortly after enrolling in the FSW, Angelo immersed herself in performance art and in 1976 she co-founded Feminist Art Workers with Cheri Gaulke, Laurel Klick, and Candace Compton (later replaced by Vanalyne Green). In an attempt to mobilize the strategies of feminist education in the field of performance art, the Feminist Art Workers used performance to create an empowering network for women in and outside of Los Angeles. In 1978, FAW created Traffic in Women: A Feminist Vehicle (1978), performed at various sites between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Prior to embarking on this project, the group conducted research on the subject of prostitution and the actual traffic in women between these two cities. In 1980, FAW embarked on an even more ambitious project, Bill of Rights, which the group performed from 1980 to 1982 in 15 states that have not passed the Equal Rights Amendment at the time. This project emerged on the heels of major demonstration in Washington, D.C., which took place in 1978 when 100,000 marched the streets demanding equal rights. It was just one of many efforts, initiated by feminists across the nation, to ensure the ratification of ERA by 1982.