Konst som ”kvinnornas språk” : Att synliggöra den konstnärliga praktiken genom Luce Irigarays filosofi ; Art as “Womenspeak” : Revaluing the Artist’s Practice through the Philosophy of Luce Irigaray

In her philosophical work, Luce Irigaray questions the universal genderless subject and advocates that it should be recognized as being implicitly male. As a result of this she proclaims a need for a new type of language, with a different set of logic, that is able to include women as subjects – which she calls “womenspeak”. In this essay I will account for Irigaray’s understanding of “womenspeak” in order to see if what she is describing also could work as a new understanding of art. “Womenspeak” is a language that defies logic, and contains contradictions without losing factuality – which also could be considered as a valid description of art. I will later argue that using Irigaray’s philosophy’s emphasis on practice, our conception of art could shift from being mainly oriented towards finished art works, to also include the artist’s practice, which would lead to a fuller understanding of art as a whole.