Tracking the figure of the girl across the fields of contemporary art and film this book moves effortlessly between cultural criticism art history and feminist theory be forewarned however the girls in contemporary art are anything but docile or well behaved. Since the 1990s female artists have led the contemporary art world in the creation of art depicting female adolescence producing challenging critically debated and avidly collected artworks that are driving the current and momentous shift in the perception of women in art girls girls. Girls is the missing link in the new feminist art history criticism it engages with that crucial and ambiguous period where children become women it engages with that crucial and ambiguous period where children become women. Essays address a variety of themes including narcissism nostalgia post feminism and fantasy with the goal of approaching the overarching question of why women artists are turning in such numbers to the subject of girls and what these artistic explorations signify