In 1974 South Australian artist Ann Newmarch, along with philosopher and academic Brian Medlin, founded the Progressive Art Movement (PAM), which focused on political issues, social concerns, and education.
PAM defined itself as a political organisation, and often mounted protests at institutions such as the Art Gallery of South Australia.
[8] Mandy Martin wrote in 1989 that members of PAM were involved in "the front organisation of the worker student alliance, a front organisation itself of the highly secretive CPAML, the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist–Leninist)"... [which] had an essentially Maoist line, and all the strategies were based around the Maoist two stage revolution, that is allying with the bourgeoisie to expel the foreign imperialists, in this case the Americans, and supporting the working–class struggle.
[9] Martin was castigated by the communist elements of the group for "fraternising with the enemy" after learning that she had had lunch with visiting American feminist curator and writer Lucy Lippard and Australian art historian Terry Smith.
[10] Mandy Martin was very involved in the development of feminist art in Australia,[16] and was a student at the time she was part of PAM.