GWA Newsletter: May

The GWA podcast is back – plus a new series on Lee Krasner; art guides to Athens, Florence, Venice; and all the art you need to see, read, and listen to this month!

May 10, 2024

Dear GWA Lovers,

The GWA Podcast is back – plus a new podcast series about Lee Krasner. We’ve got dispatches from Venice, Florence, and Athens. More tickets have been added to the upcoming tour in Australia and NZ. And, as always, the art you need to see, listen to, and read about. Let’s take a look.

The Great Women Artists Podcast is back!

Last week’s episode looks at the life and work of Judith Scott (1943–2005), as told by Catherine Morris of the Brooklyn Museum. Scott, an American artist, was hailed for her fibre-based sculptures. Born Deaf and with Down's syndrome, she turned to art in the last 17 years of her life, thanks to the Creative Growth Art Center, and used it as her form of communication. An incredible story. Listen.

This week, we interview Rose B Simpson, the New Mexico-based sculptor hailed for her clay figures adorned with symbols, antennas and materials. Her practice is informed by Indigenous tradition, as she has said: “The work represents my own journey, whether it is a psychological investigation or a new spiritual awareness, or practical…” Listen.

Thoughts on a painter

In this Substack post, I spotlight artist Nathanaëlle Herbelin:

“Herbelin paints intimacy: quiet moments that will speak to us all, from embracing each other’s bodies (or our cat!), looking out into the distance – daydreaming, maybe looking for the answers, or submerged in water, a feeling impossible to describe in words, but somehow doable in paint …
[On the painting below] “I’ve never seen touch like this. Look how the golden paint that makes up her hands seep into his skin. But, for me, everything changes when our gaze meets hers, with the glimpse of an eye that might be an insight into another story. What is she telling us? While he is engulfed in her body, she has one eye elsewhere.”

Death of an Artist S2: Krasner and Pollock

This is exciting. I’ve spent the last nine months working on Season Two of Death of an Artist, a series that looks at the legacy of Lee Krasner, and her instrumental work in the making of her husband, Jackson Pollock. Listen to the trailer. Full series out 17 May.

Plus, I highly recommend Season One, presented by the inimitable Helen Molesworth, on Ana Mendieta. Listen – and listen to Molesworth on Alice Neel for the GWA Podcast back in 2020!

The Venice Biennale

Check out my top picks for this year’s Venice Biennale for Harper’s Bazaar, including the best pavilions, and the artists not to miss at the Central Exhibition, Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Read now.

Art in Cities: Athens

The most recent instalment of Art in Cities was inspired by a recent trip to Athens, my new favourite place. Read on to check out the ancient treasures and modern marvels.

In The Guardian:

At the beginning of April, I wrote about the deep respect for the female body found in some of the earliest known Greek sculptures, known as Cycladic figures. I look at them in the context of present protest against violence towards women in Greece:

“Seeing these figurines, serene and wondrous with their elegant folded arms tightly protecting their little stomachs, got me thinking about how pregnant bodies in art and visual culture have so often been concealed. They also made me think about the need to protect bodies, to celebrate their infinite capabilities. Bodies are for honouring and conserving, not objectifying, exploiting or destroying.”

Read the rest.

This week, I wrote about the defiant artist Judith Scott on the anniversary of her birth, and the incredible work of art centers, who provide materials for artists with developmental disabilities, such as Creative Growth, LAND Gallery, and Action Space.

“Creative Growth doesn’t tell its artists what to make, or use art as therapy. Instead, it provides artists with resources to make their work, and a space to exhibit and sell it. The centre has also placed its residents’ work in the world’s great museums, including MoMA in New York and the Smithsonian in Washington DC. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, it has partnered with SFMOMA in San Francisco for two exhibitions, a three-year series of events and the acquisition of more than 100 works for the museum’s permanent collection.”

At the centre, Scott became obsessed by threads, spending every day until her death fastidiously wrapping and spinning fibres around objects, transforming them into her extraordinary creations. Her passion demonstrates art as a tool for communication or people who don’t have the capacity for verbal speech, or who have developmental disabilities. Read the rest here.

The Australia & NZ Tour

…is selling out quick! We’ve added more tickets to Sydney and Bundanon, and another date in Canberra. Click here for more. See you there!

OK! Here are your top cultural picks. Katy. Xoxo

9 Great Things to Listen To

Clay on Immaterial from The MET
Tracee Ellis Ross is an icon - and our favourite rich auntie on Black Stories. Black Truths from NPR
Pet Shop Boys on Talk Art (omg this was so good! Have you listened to their new album too? I love Love is the Law…)
Grace Wales Boner and Horace Ballard on Dialogues
Art as Activism on Harlem is Everywhere
‘At home: Artists in Conversation | Ingrid Pollard’ on YaleBritishArt YouTube
Kapwani Kiwanga on A Brush With…
Sandy Powell on Desert Island Discs
Mali Morris in Conversation with Martha Kapos on Royal Academy of Arts

8 Great Shows to See in the UK

Leilah Babirya: Obumu (Unity) at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (until 8 Sept)
Lynda Benglis: Recent Sculpture at Turner Contemporary (until 15 Sept)
Eileen Agar and Emma Witter: Tender Resurrections at Bosse and Baum Gallery (until 11 May)
Angelica Kauffman at the Royal Academy of Arts (until 30 June)
Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520–1620 at Tate Britain (from 16 May)
Magdalene Odundo at Houghton Hall (from 12 May)
Anne Rothenstein at Charleston (until 13 October)
Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors at the Garden Museum (from 15 May)

4 Great Shows to See Internationally

Zanele Muholi: Eye Me at SFMOMA (until 11 August)
Jelena Telecki at Art Gallery of NSW (until 2 June)
The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism at The Met (until 28 July)
Nina Sanadze at the National Gallery of Victoria (until 4 August)

11 Great Things to Read

Olivia Laing: The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise (addicted to this book!)
Andrew O’Hagan: Caledonian Road (so good…)
Rachel Khong: Real Americans
Julian Barnes: ‘Art and Memory’, in the LRB
Alissia Wilkinson: ‘The Essential Joan Didion’, in NYT
Zeinab Badawi: An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence
Vinson Cunningham: Great Expectations
Rosemary Hill: ‘See stars, Mummy’, in the LRB
Chetna Maroo: Western Lane
Okechukwu Nzelu: ‘On Beyoncé’, in Granta
Danyel Smith: ‘These 5 Black Ballerina Blazed their Own Train’, in NYT

4 Artists You Should Know

Miranda Forrester

Forrester lives and works in London. After graduating from the University of Brighton with a BA in Fine Art Painting, she has committed her practice to exploring the queer Black female gaze. Her images often depict cut out figures. Over canvases, Forrester stretches plastic to imitate the movements of bodies.

Emma Stibbon (b.1962)

Stibbon is a printmaker, based in Bristol. She is interested in natural phenomena, from coastlines to clouds, and the profound effect the climate energy has on our environment. Stibbon’s practice has taken her across the globe: she was the artist in residence in the Antarctic (!) at the Scott Polar Research Institute. She has an upcoming solo show Melting Ice | Rising Tidesat the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne.

Vera Chaves Barcallos (b.1938)

Chaves Barcallos is a Brazilian artist whose work explores the boundaries of physical and embodied landscapes. After studying Printmaking at Central School of Arts and Crafts and Saint Martins School of Art in London, she sought further study in the Hague and Paris before returning to Brazil. Her work is able to reveal the often overlooked overlaps between bodies and their environment.

Phoebe Boswell (b.1982)

Born in Kenya, Boswell grew up in Oman and Bahrain before moving to London. Her errant multimedia work stems from her practice of drawing, from which she develops ‘layered methods of storytelling’.

That’s it from me! Happy GWA’ing. Thank you for reading this Substack. If you think someone else might enjoy this too, please spread the word and share this post!