Articles
Esther Mahlangu: how the famous South African artist keeps her Ndebele culture alive
Mahlangu didn’t attend any formal schooling but her vibrant and distinctive artwork has earned her honorary doctorates and luminary status in contemporary African arts both locally and internationally.
(Via The Conversation)
Mahlangu didn’t attend any formal schooling but her vibrant and distinctive artwork has earned her honorary doctorates and luminary status in contemporary African arts both locally and internationally. She grew up watching elders like her grandmothers doing wall paintings in the homestead and began to imitate them. She practised over and over until she had learned to master the art of producing patterned Ndebele ornamentation.
Between prestigious gallery exhibitions and public art commissions, she creates diverse products from her work. She sells coffee cups, decor pots, beaded blankets and photographs of her mural art.
And she also teaches. As a custodian of Ndebele culture she teaches young boys and girls to do wall paintings, beadwork and traditional Ndebele dances in the backyard of her homestead in Mpumalanga. She has never wavered from her commitment to preserving Ndebele culture and passing it on.
Faith Ringgold Dies at 93
A champion of Black artists, she explored themes of race, gender, class, family and community through a vast array of media and later the written word. (Via NY Times)
A champion of Black artists, she explored themes of race, gender, class, family and community through a vast array of media and later the written word. (Via NY Times)
Faith Ringgold, a multimedia artist whose pictorial quilts depicting the African American experience gave rise to a second distinguished career as a writer and illustrator of children’s books, died on Saturday at her home in Englewood, N.J. She was 93.
Her death was confirmed by her daughter Barbara Wallace.
For more than a half-century, Ms. Ringgold explored themes of race, gender, class, family and community through a vast array of media, among them painting, sculpture, mask- and doll-making, textiles and performance art. She was also a longtime advocate of bringing the work of Black people and women into the collections of major American museums.
A Heady Time of Change for Women Artists - The diary of Donna Dennis.
Donna Dennis’s Newly Published Diaries Provide A Rare Glimpse Into A Heady Time of Change for Women Artists
Donna Dennis’s Newly Published Diaries Provide A Rare Glimpse Into A Heady Time of Change for Women Artists - Via ArtnNews
Dennis wasn’t making art whose subject matter was overtly feminist; she was innovating architectural sculpture alongside the likes of Alice Aycock. Nevertheless, the influence of feminism becomes apparent in the way she thinks of her work, leavened by her unique sense of humor: “The door is also a kind of vagina and I’ve always thought of my works as kind of mantraps,” she writes. “So it’s a woman’s joke on men. The works are my size (height). The scale of my works once they started coming into the room (marked by the birth of the box) has always been measured and determined by human scale. The painted world behind the box was 10′ × 7′, designed to engulf the viewer (who I REALIZE I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT OF AS MALE). I wanted to overwhelm him. So I see now I’ve developed a sense of confidence and humor on the subject of male/female relationships.”
Making a living as an artist
A wonderful zine published by The Creative Independent, compiling quotes, excerpts, and recommendations from working artists, all gathered from our archive. Topics covered include making money through your art, financial planning, day jobs, and starting a creative business.
Download it free - thanks The Creative Independent, you rock!
A wonderful zine published by The Creative Independent, compiling quotes, excerpts, and recommendations from working artists, all gathered from our archive. Topics covered include making money through your art, financial planning, day jobs, and starting a creative business.
5 Gallerists on What It Means to Support Women Artists Today
Women gallerists from London to Lagos are creating networks of support to challenge a male-dominated art world.
For decades, women gallerists have worked with women artists to create networks of support, friendship, and research that seek to challenge the male-dominated environment of the art world. Today, they continue to maintain the urgency of this project in a myriad of different ways.
For decades, women gallerists have worked with women artists to create networks of support, friendship, and research that seek to challenge the male-dominated environment of the art world. Today, they continue to maintain the urgency of this project in a myriad of different ways.
The five women gallerists featured here are based in locations from London to Lagos, and this global span points to the often intersectional approach that women gallerists take to their programming. These gallerists advocate for the multiplicity of issues that women artists are tackling today, from body politics to environmentalism.
Five Major Museums Unveil Audio Guides Celebrating Lesser-Known Women Artists
The project—titled Museums Without Men—debuted in the U.S. and the U.K. during Women’s History Month. In honor of Women’s History Month, five museums in the United States and the United Kingdom are debuting curated audio guides dedicated to the work of women and gender nonconforming artists.
The project—titled Museums Without Men—debuted in the U.S. and the U.K. during Women’s History Month. In honor of Women’s History Month, five museums in the United States and the United Kingdom are debuting curated audio guides dedicated to the work of women and gender nonconforming artists.
The project, titled Museums Without Men, is the brainchild of Katy Hessel, an art historian and author of 2022’s The Story of Art Without Men.
Participating institutions include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in California, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Hepworth Wakefield in northern England and Tate Britain in London.
Paris’s famous art school removes all mention of #MeToo in new book
The renowned French art academy the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (Ensba), in Paris, is at the centre of a censorship row following claims that a section about #MeToo sexual harassment claims were removed from a book about the history of women at the institution.
The renowned French art academy the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (Ensba), in Paris, is at the centre of a censorship row following claims that a section about #MeToo sexual harassment claims were removed from a book about the history of women at the institution.
According to the French publication Le Quotidien de l’Art (8 March), 1,500 copies of the book Les Suffragettes de l’art. L’entrée des femmes a l’Ecole des Beaux-arts (The Suffragettes of Art. The Entrance of Women into l’Ecole des Beaux-arts) by the art critic Anaïd Demir were reprinted earlier this year. The new, second, version of the book is missing the sections “#MeToo years” and “A charter for gender equality”.
Read full article on The Art Newspaper
Good Art Karma: Female Painters Who Connect With Their Passion And Deeper Meaning
Since the 1980s, when the art world was colonized by Wall Street bankers, misconceptions about the value of art have abounded. In spotlighting these artists, with the help of a curator who is making waves, I hope to bring public awareness to the fact that there is some wonderful art being created by enormously talented artists who are not part of the art world stratum catering to billionaires and driven by exorbitant gallery rents.
5 Feminine Beauty Ideals in Art History
Take a look at the evolution of feminine beauty ideals throughout art history, from Nefertiti to Tamara De Lempicka.
Eileen Agar: Her Jewel-Like Paintings Stretched Surrealism
The British artist lived long and worked in numerous mediums, but is barely known in the United States.
The Power of Barbara Kruger’s Art, in Her Own Words
As her major exhibition THINKING OF YOU. I MEAN ME. I MEAN YOU. opens at Serpentine, we draw on Kruger’s own quotes to explore her extraordinary life and legacy
Marginalized Artists are Front and Center at the 2024 Venice Biennale
Curator Adriano Pedrosa is putting the spotlight on Indigenous and queer artists as well as those from the Global South.
Art Deco Star Tamara de Lempicka Is Finally Getting Her First Major U.S. Retrospective
This fall, San Francisco's de Young Museum will spotlight the creative life and legacy of the trailblazing artist.
Spirits of Place: One Writer Reflects on Her Life, From Frida Kahlo's Mexico City to Jean-Michel Basquiat's Big Apple
After spending her childhood in Mexico under the influence of Frida Kahlo, Jennifer Clements considers how she carried the artist’s revolutionary spirit into the high-octane counter-culture of Eighties New York
Who Painted it? Dutch Women Artists and Misattribution
There is evidence that works by Dutch women artists have been misattributed.
New Art Museum Exhibition Delves into ‘Feminist Futures’
A new exhibition at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art explores critical questions about artmaking, history, the future and feminist models of inquiry using works from the museum’s collection and UO faculty members.
Ending the Stigma of Disability in the Art World
US Congress member Shirley Chisholm famously said: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring in a folding chair.”
Art by women is soaring in value as buyers seek to rewrite history
Works by female artists rose up the rankings of auction sale prices last year, as collectors reassess pieces that have gone undervalued throughout art history, according to the Artnet Price Database, which tracks the prices of works sold at auction.