GWA Newsletter: December

My latest round up of the what to read, see and listen to this month!

Dec 04, 2024

Dear Readers,

I hope you are all doing well and gearing up for the festive season! Here’s your monthly dispatch of great things to look at, read, and listen to — but first, some updates from me:

The Great Women Artists Podcast:

Rachel Whiteread’s Turbine Hall commission, 2005

I spoke with Director of Tate, Maria Balshaw, about the history of museums, as well as artists Frida Kahlo, Tracey Emin, and more!

Maria has recently published a book, Gathering of Strangers, about museums — their origins, roles, and complexities, and the future of what they mean today. As she tells me:

“We shouldn't have preconceived perceptions of what people will love. There'll be things that hook people to come in. But then the joy of the museum is that you discover something that you don't know. Or that sometimes you look at something that speaks to you, but you don't even know why.”

Listen now

Cecilia Vicuña

I interviewed the incredible artist Cecilia Vicuña, whose extraordinary artworks meld sound, weaving, language, and community to hold up a poignant mirror to our world.

We spoke about her childhood in Chile, her lifelong connection to nature, the importance of collaboration in an increasingly fractured world — and much more.

“If art touches people viscerally, without explanations, without anything, then there is a chance that they will be touched in the places that need to be touched for people to feel fully human. Which is what our societies are doing. They have dehumanised us. And so if art can bring back the fullness of sensation, sensibility, feeling, questioning, intrigue, curiosity, then I think we have a place.”

Listen now

I also had the pleasure of speaking to groundbreaking artist Katharina Grosse at her exhibition in NYC. Working across painting, sculpture, and more, Grosse employs artforms in the most imaginative and inventive ways, getting us to rethink their histories and traditions.

“[In Italy] I thought everything was a painting – so it wasn't just the fresco per se that was inspiring me, but it was the way that the facades were painted with all these different layers of ochre or washed away again from the rain here or there [...] And everywhere there were little Madonnas and little signs of an image that was restored, or somebody scribbled something somewhere. So everything was almost as if it was a painting. So that was my reality I lived in.”

Listen now

Shahzia Sikander

Spanning painting, sculpture, drawing, and animation, Sikander creates artworks that practically and theoretically transcend borders, to disrupt assumptions around national, political, and art historical boundaries.

We had a fascinating discussion . On how you can reclaim your own narrative, Sikander said —

“I think it comes back to so many aspects of what happens to artists of colour, oftentimes… Being Asian is like having either very heightened visibility or invisibility within the dynamics of the art world.
I think, how do you speak up to being tokenised and also reflect on power, how it affects us in our daily lives…
Keep thinking, moving. You know, be curious, speak up for yourself, all these things that are inherent in the nature of being a feminist.— give more women more power of expression, for people to write about more stories. So abundance is the counter to all of it.”

Listen to the rest here.

Barbara Walker

Born in Birmingham, Walker is hailed for her intimate paintings of everyday life, and intricate drawings that not only show power dynamics in Old Master Paintings, but give voice to histories that are all too often erased. Don’t miss her exhibition at The Whitworth in Manchester!

“Creativity is not just in the four walls in the studio. It's everywhere. It's around us. Art is around us. And I feed off things around me. It could be a crack in the pavement that sparks a discussion in my head, and I will try and capture that in a drawing to preserve it. And, you know, it stays with me for a while. I may put it on the back burner for it to marinate, and then I will pick it up at some point. Never know where, but I'm always looking, I'm always curious, and I'm always inspired.”

You can listen to the rest of our conversation here.

In The Guardian:

I wrote about about Qualesha Wood’s tapestries, Nancy Holt’s sun tunnels, and how art can remind us to look out at the world, rather than down at our mobile phones.

“I do believe that art can help counteract the damaging effects of scrolling on our smartphones. More than ever, we are craving art that can offer world-shifting perspectives to get us to believe in our humanity again.”

You can read the rest here.

The latest instalment of my Substack series ‘5 things we can learn from…’ is dedicated to the wisdom of formidable artist Paula Rego. A preview:

Face your fears
Paula Rego knew the power of art to help us process and exorcise demons — as she famously said, “I paint to give a face to fear”. When I spoke to her son, Nick Willing, on the GWA podcast, he told me that, as a kid, when he was scared or suffering, his mother would get him to draw fear — “she'd say to me, paint a picture of it. I want to see what it feels like.”

Read on for more!

Also on Substack, I wrote about making artistic connections through time, between three shows in NYC: Orphism in Paris (1910–30) at the Guggenheim, Salon 94’s textile exhibition, and Katharina Grosse at Gagosian.

It was fascinating to visit in today’s age, to see how artists grappled with the speed of technology 100 years ago, shattering electric colours on a canvas to evoke the dynamism of the new world.

Read on here.

And it’s that time of year again — it’s the 2024 edition of the Great Women Artists Gift Guide! From books to prints, homeware to ideas for kids, there’s something for every art lover. If you’re in need of some gift-buying inspiration, you can check that out here.

This year’s The Great Women Artists Residency at Palazzo Monti features the brilliant artists Anna Calleja, Tali Lennox and Sophie Ruigrok. For those in Italy, don’t miss it — on for the next few weeks.

And now on to my cultural picks for the month. Enjoy! Xoxo Katy

6 great things to read:

Hetta Howes: Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women
Deborah Levy: The Position of Spoons: And Other Intimacies
Nicholas Cullinan interviewed by Jan Dalley, via Financial Times
Ali Smith: Gliff
On Frank Auerbach, via The New York Times
LRB Collections 12: ‘Sisters Come Second’

10 great shows to see:

Lauren Halsey: emajendat at Serpentine Galleries
The Imaginary Institution of India, 1975 - 1998 at Barbican
María Berrío: The End of Ritual at Victoria Miro
Tai Shani: The World to Me Was a Secret: Caesious, Zinnober, Celadon and Virescent at Cosmic House
Here Today, Here Tomorrow: works from Jerwood Collection at Arnolfini
The 80s: Photographing Britain at Tate Modern
Lorna Simpson: Earth and Sky at Hauser & Wirth New York 22nd Street
Paula Rego: Power Games at Kunstmuseum, Basel
Mari Chorda: And Many Other Things at MACBA, Barcelona
Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious at Dulwich Picture Gallery