GWA Newsletter November '22 II
Artwork of the week: Käthe Kollwitz, Woman with Dead Child, 1903
Dear Great Women Art Lovers,
I hope you are all very well.
Today, we released an episode of The Great Women Artists Podcast with Professor Dorothy Price discussing the acclaimed German Expressionist, Käthe Kollwitz.
Price is also the curator of the unmissable and recently opened Making Modernism at the Royal Academy, a show focusing on women artists active in Germany in the early 20th century – where Kollwitz plays a leading role.
Very excitingly, this Monday I appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week alongside art historian and tattoo expert, Matt Lodder and classicist Caroline Vout. We discussed bodies and how they have been perceived from antiquity to the present day. Listen back here!
In the Guardian I wrote about the midterm elections in the US and how, in some states, abortion was a deciding factor. I discussed this in relation to Tracey Emin’s The Last of the Gold (2002), a quilt that shares emotional and practical advice, often left out by medical professionals, for those going through an abortion. Read here.
And one final update from me, my last book talk of 2022 takes place next Monday 21 November where I will be speaking with Simon Sebag-Montefiore on ‘Art and Power in World History’ at the V&A. The in person tickets have been sold out with tickets available for online viewing available here!
Lots of love,
Katy xoxo
Now onto your top 5s:
5 Shows in Britain
Interior featuring Gwen John, Christina Kimeze, Nairy Baghramian, Anita Steckel, Mary Stephenson, Willa Wasserman and others curated by Andrew Bonacina at Michael Werner
Making Modernism: Paula Modersohn-Becker, Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin at the RA
Radhika Khimji and Lee Miller: Portraits in Space at Sapling
Reena Kallat at Compton Verney
Sabrina featuring Gillian Ayres, Tracey Emin, Pam Evelyn, Caroline Jackson, Francesca Mollett, Katy Moran, Victoria Morton, Daisy Parris, Hayley Tompkins and Michaela Yearwood-Dan curated by Russel Tovey at Sim Smith
5 Shows Overseas
Cindy Sherman at Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto
Olivia Sterling at Meyer Riegger, Berlin
Paula Rego at Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover
Shirin Neshat at SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico
Yayoi Kusama at M+ Museum, Hong Kong
5 Artists Discovered
Helen Saunders - An English painter associated with the Vorticist movement in the 1910s. Her jagged abstract forms almost cut through the canvas and she is currently the subject of an exhibition at the Courtauld.
Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle - Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle explores what she has described as “the historical present”. Hinkle draws on top of 19th and 20th century ethnographic photographs from Western Africa to produce a fantastical hybrid of real individuals’ bodies beneath their richly imagined inner lives.
Plum Cloutman - Plum Cloutman’s paintings of interiors look almost stitched in their grainy brown and pink detail. She works on a small scale that make the paintings feel like small windows into a fantastical, medieval realm occupied by women.
Sarah Biffin - Sarah Biffin was a 19th-century miniature painter born with phocomelia (meaning she was without arms or legs). She taught herself to sew, write and paint at such a level that her work cannot be distinguished from the best miniaturists of her time – and her work is currently on view at Philip Mould.
Sasha Huber – Swiss-Haitian artist Sasha Huber explores the threads of colonialism through her elegant portraits of under recognised people of colour, through the technique of stapling onto blown up photographs or black pieces of paper.
5 Things to Read
Art is Life by Jerry Saltz
Jo Applin on the late Lee Bontecou (1931-2022) for Tate
Juliet Jacques on Anne Imhof's Deserted Locker Rooms for Frieze
Precious Adesina on Public Art in the U.K and it’s Shift Towards Black Experiences for the New York Times
Paula Modersohn-Becker: A Life in Art by Uwe M. Schneede
5 Things to Listen to
Cassi Namoda on Shade podcast
BBC Earth Podcast
Ria Lina and Otegha Uwagba on A Good Read by Radio 4
Shirin Neshat on the women-led protests in Iran for the FT Weekend Podcast
Melvyn Bragg with Lois Oliver, Claire Moran and Tamar Garb on Berthe Morisot for In Our Time on BBC Radio 4
10 Things to Do in London (too many amazing things going on, had to double up!)
17 November 7-8pm: Discussion of Ayo Akingbade with Dr David Dibosa and Sam Wetherell at Chisenhale
18 November 11-12pm: Curator talk with Professor Dorothy Price for Making Modernism at the RA
18 November 6:30-8pm: Jenny Saville in conversation with Martin Gayford at Gagosian
18 November, 6-9pm: Screening and artist talk with Sung Tieu and Sam Thorne at Forma HQ
19 November 3-4:30pm: Panel with Rachel Jones, Kirsty Ogg, Ellie Pennick and Russel Martin on Springboard: The opportunities and challenges on the other side of graduation at Freelands Foundation
23 November 6:30-7pm: Chantal Joffe RA and Professor Dorothy Price in conversation at the RA
25 November 7-8:30pm: Grace Ndiritu with Melanie Keen in conversation at the Wellcome Collection
25 November 7-8:30pm: Rene Matić in conversation with Emma Dabiri at South London Gallery
27 November 2:30-4:30pm: Guided tour on The Presence of Women in Museum Collections at the National Gallery
28 November 6:30-8pm: Caroline Vout in conversation with Mary Beard on Exposed: the Greek and Roman body at the British Museum
This newsletter is brought to you by Katy Hessel + Viva Ruggi