GWA Newsletter: May
Updates, and cultural recommendations for the month of May
Hello Great Women Artists lovers, and welcome to May’s newsletter. Coming to you from a sunny NYC!
Scroll on for a round of updates, including new GWA podcast episodes, and further talks in Charleston, East Sussex. I’ve also rounded up the best things to read, listen to, and wander through this month. But first – for those in NYC:
Tomorrow (8 May), 5.30pm, I will be in conversation with Antonia Showering at Timothy Taylor for her exhibition “In Line” – or see you at the opening, 6–8pm!
Friday (9 May), 9.30am, I’ll be speaking on a panel at Lévy Gorvy Dayan with artists and their sitters, including Jenna Gribbon, Mimi Gross (who sat for Alice Neel), Wangari Mathenge, and Marcia Marcus’s daughter Kate Prendergast. Please join us: rsvp@levygorvydayan.com
Ok. Let’s have a look. Enjoy! Xoxo
Charleston Festival 2025
On Friday 16th May, 7.30pm, I’ll be at Charleston Festival talking all things Vanessa Bell with Wendy Hitchmough, who has just written a fantastic new biography of the artist. Get your ticket here.
Come and hear so many brilliant minds at Charleston Festival, from Roxane Gay, Sarah Lucas, Maggi Hambling (!!), Shon Faye, Deborah Levy, and many more. Tickets!
The Great Women Artists Podcast: Bharti Kher
Episode 153 of the GWA podcast is with world-renowned artist Bharti Kher!
Bharti Kher is known for a seemingly limitless practice that spans painting (with bindis!), sculpture, installation, found objects, and more. Exploring hybrid beings — fusing animals and humans, objects and nature — Kher’s extraordinary art-making looks at and exists both in the real world and imaginary. Listen here!
Danielle Mckinney
For episode 154, I also spoke to the extraordinary Danielle Mckinney.
Born in Alabama, and based in New Jersey, Mckinney is hailed for her small, contemplative, introspective and intimate paintings of women. Caught in moments of rest, relaxation and repose, Mckinney’s works, to my mind, are a collective portrait of the joys of female solitude. Listen here!
Michaela Yearwood-Dan
And episode 155 is with Michaela Yearwood-Dan!
“With the work I make, I always feel like the biggest compliment is for someone to be like, I don't really know much about art, but I really enjoy this… I just wanna know that it's connecting with people.”
Hailed for her works that bloom, dance, and come alive, Yearwood-Dan intertwines the botanical with abstraction. Never restricting herself to just one medium, she works across ceramics, sound, installation, performance, and paintings that can range from small to the colossal.
I visited her studio ahead of her new exhibition, opening at Hauser & Wirth, London on 13 May. Titled No Time for Despair, it references a line from Toni Morrison’s 2015 article for The Nation, which states, “in times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.” Listen here!
In The Guardian
In the wake of the recent UK supreme court ruling, I wrote about Ugandan artist Leilah Babirye’s powerful sculptures, made from discarded materials, which celebrate marginalised communities:
In 2022, two wooden sculptures stood on the riverbanks of Brooklyn. Configured as bodies with multiple heads, the monumental works – part of a larger group titled Agali Awamu, which translates as “Togetherness” – towered over those who interacted with them … While one was made up of two bodies conjoined at the hip, the other had billowing hair and carried faces on its back and belly, which seemed to be singing in harmony. The sculptures looked peaceful, and protective of each other and of those who walked past them.
On Substack
For paid Substack subscribers I jotted down some of my thoughts on the brilliant Christina Kimeze: Between Wood and Wheel at South London Gallery. You can read that here. Make sure you catch the show before it closes on 11 May!
Ok, now for this month’s selection of what to see, listen to, read, and do. Xoxo Katy
12 great things to see in the UK:
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas at the Whitworth, Manchester, until 7 Sep
Michaela Yearwood-Dan: No Time for Despair, Hauser & Wirth, London, until 2 Aug
Jordan Casteel: A Presentation of Works, Thaddaeus Ropac, London, until 8 Jun
Laura Ellen Bacon: Into Being at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, until 7 Sep
Chioma Ebinama: Real love is a love that sets you free, Maureen Paley, London, until 31 May
The Glasgow Girls display at National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, until 8 Jun
Huma Bhabha: Encounters: Giacometti, at Barbican, until 10 Aug
Niki de Saint Phalle & Jean Tinguely: Myths and Machines, at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, until 1 Feb
Bona de Mandiargues at Alison Jacques, London, until 28 Jun
Everlyn Nicodemus at National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, until 26 May
Works by Rosemary Mayer, 1971–1983 at Hollybush Gardens, London, until 21 Jun
Cornelia Parker: History Painting, Frith Street Gallery, London, until 5 Jul
Isabelle Young: The 6 o’clock in Siena at Cedric Bardawil Gallery, London, until 31 May
15 great things to see outside the UK:
Ilana Savdie: Glottal Stop, White Cube, New York, until 14 Jun
Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, SFMOMA, until 2 Sep
The Human Situation: Marcia Marcus, Alice Neel, Sylvia Sleigh, Lévy Gorvy Dayan, New York, until 21 Jun
When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, Bozar, Brussels, until 10 Aug
Kith & Kin: Quilts of Gee's Bend, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, until 27 Oct
Carolee Schneemann, Lisson, LA, until 7 Jun
Leilah Babirye: Ekimyula Ekijjankunene, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, until 4 Jun
Antonia Showering: In Line, Timothy Taylor, New York, until 21 Jun
Elizabeth Peyton: La pesanteur et la grace, David Zwirner, Paris, until 28 Jun
Ghada Amer: Disobedient Thoughts, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, until 14 Jun
Nathanaëlle Herberlin: And there is a place you will not be able to return to, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, until 21 Jun
Circa 1995: New Figuration in New York, David Zwirner, New York, until 17 Jul
Adriana Varejão: Historias Moldadas, Gagosian, Athens, until 14 Jun
Lois Dodd: Selected Small Paintings, Alexandre Gallery, New York, until 20 Jun
Staying with the Trouble, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, until 21 Sep
6 great things to read:
Emily LaBarge on Noah Davis, via LRB
From acid house to ancient rites: Jeremy Deller’s enormous, collaborative, unsellable art, via The Guardian
Dreaming leaps: The occult imagination of Ithell Colquhoun by Jennifer Higgie, via TLS
9 great things to listen to/watch:
Es Devlin via Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud
Joan Mitchell at 100 with Julie Mehretu and Eileen Myles, via Dialogues
Robert Macfarlane - Is a River Alive? via BBC Radio 4
Maggie O’Farrell via This Cultural Life
Zarina Muhammad & Gabrielle de la Puente with Olivia Sudjic, via The London Review Bookshop
Artist Talk: Tracey Emin, via Yale British Arts
Conclave (dir. Edward Berger)
Start the Week: Christianity and British society, ft. Lamorna Ash, via BBC Radio 4
5 great things to do in London:
Jenn Nkiru joins Alberta Whittle and Phoebe Boswell to talk about intersectional creativity and "Black Worlding", moderated by Tina Campt — Barbican, Sun 11 May
Photo London Fair at Somerset House, 15-18 May
Tate Birthday Weekender, 9-11 May - a weekend of totally free music, performances, and talks to celebrate Tate Modern’s 25th birthday
Crafted Kinship: Inside the Creative Practices of Contemporary Black Caribbean Makers, at V&A South Kensington, 13 May
Ceramic Art London Fair, Olympia West, 9-11 May
5 great artists to know:
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 article. If you have any feedback — or your own May recommendation! — please comment below.
Some incredible links here - thank you. Definitely going to look at the gallery recommendations and the Maggie O’Farrell especially caught my eye. I’m curious to know if any of the female artists you’ve come across talk about female stoicism at all, because it is a subject I’m trying to see if we have anything on an so can’t believe there’s no evidence of it anywhere
Thank you for your newsletters - so much great women's art to see and learn about! Wondering - albeit from afar - about your portrayal of the protests that followed the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of sex in the Equality Act as "peaceful and full of love". Perhaps that's not all they were? Hannah Barnes wrote about: " ...the threats made to women during the trans rights activist protests that followed the judgement, at which some carried placards bearing abusive messages, including “The only good Terf is a [dead] one” and “Bring back witch burning”.