Freddie Baer

Media, Reviews, Studies about Freddie

Reviews of Ecstatic Incisions:
  • “Review of Ecstatic Incisions“, Freedom, vol. 53 no. 19 (March 10, 1992). “Over the last decade her illustrations, ranging from the bitingly political to the sublimely surreal, have appeared in all manner of places: from works by the publishers of Semiotexte, Fifth Estate, Factsheet Five and Anarchy, to magazine and record covers, t-shirts and posters. This is her first collection of collage work, and very fine it is too.”
  • Just Say No (July 1992) – “A beautifully produced book on the collage work of Freddie Baer with a preface by Peter Lamborn Wilson. … To complement the often stunning montage graphics are collaborative poems, rants and texts, inc. Hakim Bey. … A charming collection.”
  • Interzone, July 1992 – “Freddie Bear is a contribute to Interzone as well as SF Eye and other magazines; we recommend her work highly.”
  • Profane Existence #15 (Summer 1992) – “If you’ve ever flipped through an issue of Anarchy or Fifth Estate or you have the Political Asylum lp, chances are you’ve seen the work of Freddie Baer, collage constructor extraordinaire. This book is a collection of some of her best collages, mostly done between 1988 and 1991. What she does with scissors and glue and a bunch of 19th century wood carvings or contemporary photography is amazing, as the cover piece testifies. Along with dozens of her collages (many of which were originally t-shirt designs, meaning you probably haven’t already seen most of them), there are also a few collaborative pieces (someone else’s writing and her collages) and a cool 20-questions interview with her at the beginning of the book. It’s cool to have people like her in the anarchist community (check out with she did with George Bradford’s “The Triumph of Capital” in the Spring 1992 issue of Fifth Estate — excellent), especially because she doesn’t rehash the same tired old graphics, but is constantly creating new images (ironically, out of old stuff). The only drawback to this book is the $12 cover price — ouch. The best thing about it is the emphasis on the democracy of collage art — anyone can cut and paste — and the way she smashes the elitism of the artist. That’s the key theme to this book, and whether you like her work or not, we’d all do well to give serious consideration to the idea of democratizing art and hell, maybe even getting the scissors out of the drawer and seeing what we can do.”
  • “Ecstatic Incisions by Freddie Baer“, Socialist (Sept. 1992) – “Revolutionary coffee-table book of the month.”
  • Ray Violet, Tribune: Labour’s Independent Weekly, #18 (Sept. 1992) – “This sublimely provocative collection is another step forward for surrealism.”
  • Jason Mcquinn, “Ecstatic Reveries”, Anarchy #34 (Fall 1992), pp. 13, 15
  • Charlotte Ross, “Ecstatic Incisions“, Harpies & Quimes #3 (October 1992) – “Anarchism and Feminism are interwoven in these powerful anti-establishment, anti-patriarchal, strongly pro-woman images. At first glance the collection is easy to dismiss as resting on the laurels of the elaborate etchings from which many of the collages spring. But these images grow on you and you soon realise that much more complex processes are at work. She has taken very traditional, conservative images and created from them witty, anarchic, shocking and beautiful viewing. She interposes a huge Boadicean women [sic] behind an American cityscape with the caption ‘Don’t Fuck with Mother Nature.’ Another page shows a detailed biological drawing of female genitalia on an ornate background bearing the words ‘Read Our Lips: We Demand Choice.’ At first glance the meanings nearly escape your notice but something always draws you back just in time. Other pictures are more delicate or surreal but nearly all excite the senses in one way or another. Freddie’s book brims with ecstatic female sexuality and incisive social comment. My tip is to leave it on your coffee table or beside the loo if you’re a coward!”
  • SF Weekly, May 20, 1993
  • John Moore, “Images and Anarchism” Review Article, v.3, n.1 (Spring 1995); available in Composition and Decomposition by John Moore (2nd draft available at Internet Archive) (“Frequently operating on the impossible but necessary—indeed, delirious—interface between anarchism and science fiction (a literary genre regarded as “liberatory” [p. 9]), Baer’s work can most appropriately be characterized as utopian fantasy. …”) 3 pages of review of Baer’s collage imagery and sourcing in Ecstatic Incisions.
  • Heaven Bone (#10) – Steve Hirsch, “Baer’s collages juxtapose graceful archetypal medievel [sic] figures and nudes beside the charged symbols of modern technological and industrial life, urging us to think on where we have come from and where we are going and what choices we have surrendered and must visually reclaim in order to fight political lethargy. Being anarchistic and essentially radical, there is a huge comfort in viewing these collages, knowing that there is no random wisdom here but a vision as deliberate as her scissors are sharp.”
  • GirlFrenzy #3, “Cut-Up Women: The Work of Freddie Baer and Anna Pedroza”, pp. 16-17 [PDF of review and inscription to Freddie]
Additional Studies, Reviews, Etc.:
  • Artpolitik: Social Anarchist Aesthetics in an Age of Fragmentation by Neala Schleuning (Minor Compositions / Autonomedia, 2013), Chapter 8: Social Anarchist Aesthetics in an Age of Fragmentation, pp. 233-285.
  • Yetta Howard, “Unsuitable for Children? Adult-erated Age in Underground Graphic Narratives”, American Literature, v.90, n.2 (June 2018) (discussing Pussycat Fever, text by Kathy Acker and illustrations by Freddie Baer and Diane DiMassa).
  • “Collage Art Influences: Freddie Baer”, Art Pirate @ YouTube (2024)
  • obituaries: 2025/11/15 (for facebook)
  • Audrey Vanderford, “Review of the Raw Brunettes”, Femspec, v.4, n.2 (June 2003) (“It maintains its coherence in part from the inclusion of Pollack’s forward and Freddie Baer‘s collage art. Despite its flaws, The Raw Brunettes is a provocative story, particularly when read alongside the more developed and nuanced Les Guérillères. “All action is overthrow” claim les guérillères, and the Raw Brunettes join them in conjuring a perpetual women’s revolution.”)
  • Tim Goodman, “The Bastard Machine Blog”, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 1, 2006
  • Jan-Willem Geerinck (“jahsonic”), “Anarchism” (“In the late 20th century, anarchism and the arts could primarily be associated with the collage works by James Koehnline, Freddie Baer, Johan Humyn Being, and others, whose work was being published in anarchist magazines, including Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed and Fifth Estate. Freddie Baer is noteworthy for her work as a book designer for AK Press and for her contributions to the feminist science fiction milieu. Baer has contributed art to the annual WisCon conference, a convention featuring feminist science fiction which awards the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Freddie Baer has been nominated several times for the Hugo Award for her work as a fan artist.”)
  • Alan Antliff, Anarchy and Art: From the Paris Commune to the Fall of the Berlin Wall (Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, 2007)
  • “Anarchism in the Arts”, Encyclopedia Brittanica (“In the 1960s a new anarchist agitprop art began to flourish, largely inspired by Expressionism, Surrealism, and the work of the Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada. The Italian painter Flavio Costantini’s dramatic portrayals of anarchist history and the graphic art of Carlos Cortez, Eric Drooker, and Josh MacPhee in the United States and Clifford Harper in England were widely reproduced in anarchist magazines and as posters. Also striking are the imaginative collages of American artists Freddie Baer and James Koehnline.”)
  • J.C. Greer, “Zines”, Dictionary of Contemporary Esotericism (ed. E. Asprem), Leiden: Brill (“The vanguard of the zine scene, known as the “marginal milieu”, drew together a handful of esoteric factions. . . . This alternative publishing microcosm’s most revered personas included the aforementioned Kerry Thornley (1938-1998), àHakim Bey (né Peter Lamborn Wilson, b. 1945), àRobert Anton Wilson (1932-2007), Robert “Bob” Black (1951-), and John Zerzan (1943-). Similarly conspicuous were the artists Donna Kosey (?), James Koehnline (1955-), and Freddie Baer (1952-), as well as the aforementioned Gunderoy, Rev. Crowbar (Susan Poe, b. unknown), and Rev. Ivan Stang (Douglass St. Clair Smith, 1953-) who worked primarily as zine editors. All these figures tended to publish in the same zines, which in turn garnered more prestige than literary digests unaffiliated with members of the marginal milieu.”
  • Ron Sakolsky, “Rocks in My Pillow: Review: Anarchy and Art” (2008) (“Of Antliff’s other choices for the last chapter, the wondrous collages of Freddie Baer are duly noted, but where are the visual feasts cooked up by collagist James Koehnline and what of the hearty black humor of his fellow collagist, Winston Smith, both of whose art work has been widely disseminated in relation to the magazines, books, and recordings of the anarchist milieu and both of whom have surrealist affinities as well? Instead, the remainder of the chapter is spent on the late Richard Mock, a political printmaker to whom Antliff has staked his claim as an anarchist art historian. Here Mock is made to play Courbet to Antliff’s Proudhon.”)
Interviews
Fictional & Literary Representations
  • “The Bolder Piece” by Leslie Fish (song about Freddie’s anti-rape action in the early 1970s)

See also: