Betye Saar, 93, a
major African-
American artist who
emerged in the Civil
Rights era, is best
known for her
assemblages
exploring race and
racism, gender,
identity and
memory. Although
she has been
seriously under-
represented in art
museums, the tide is
slowly turning and
the Museum of
Modern Art in New
York reopens this
month in its newly
expanded home with
The Legends of
Black Girl’s Window
(October 21-January 4,
2020), a show
focusing on prints
made by Saar
leading up to her
1969 sculptural
collage Black Girl’s
Window (below).LIVINGLEGENDART CRITICISM
Pride
OF PLACE
useums were
already diversifying
their programming
to better represent
contemporary and modern art
when activist movements such as
“Me Too” and “Decolonize this
Place” burst into the art world
with calls for them to do much
more, much faster. Whether theyadmit it or not, this has had a
galvanising eect on institutions
and we are now seeing an
unprecedented focus on art by
women, particularly
older women, with many trail-
blazers nally getting the
recognition they deserve
alongside already acclaimed
female artists.M
A WOMAN’S WORLD
Time’s up for the male-dominated art sceneTHE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART: BEQUEST OF MABEL GARRISON, IN MEMORY OF HER HUSBAND, GEORGE SIEMONN. BMA 1964.11.13. © THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM/ARTIST RIGHTS SOCIETY ¦ARS§, NEW YORK PINK TULIP, 1926¡; COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND STEVENSON GALLERY © ZANELE MUHOLI NTOZAKHE II, PARKTOWN 2016¡; COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, ANDREW KREPS GALLERY, NEW YORK AND ESTHER SCHIPPER, BERLIN HITO STEYERL, RED ALERT, 2007¡; THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK. GIFT OF CANDACE KING WEIR THROUGH THE MODERN WOMEN’S FUND, AND COMMITTEE ON PAINTING AND SCULPTURE FUNDS. © 2019 BETYE SAAR, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND ROBERTS PROJECTS, LOS ANGELES. DIGITAL IMAGE © 2018 THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, PHOTO BY ROB GERHARDT BETYE SAAR, BLACK GIRL’S WINDOW, 1969¡COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, SALON 94, NEW YORK, AND JESSICA SILVERMAN GALLERY, SAN FRANCISCO © JUDY CHICAGO/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY, NEW YORK. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THROUGH THE FLOWER ARCHIVES. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE FINE ARTS MUSEUMS OF SAN FRANCISCO JUDY CHICAGO, IMMOLATION, FROM ‘WOMEN AND SMOKE’, 1972. FIREWORKS PERFORMANCE, PERFORMED IN CALIFORNIA DESERT¡; COURTESY OF THE MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ ARCHIVES © MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ, ARTIST PORTRAIT WITH A CANDLE C¡, FROM THE SERIES PLACES OF POWER, 2013¡; JASON WYCHE © KARA WALKER KARA WALKER, A SUBTLETY OR THE MARVELOUS SUGAR BABY, DOMINO SUGAR REFINERY, BROOKLYN, NY, 2014¡;Growing up in South Africa, Zanele Muholi (above)
found few representations of black lesbians like herself.
To put this right, she spent years photographing the
black South African LGBT community. The resulting
series, Faces and Places, goes on display at Tate Modern
next year in a show which also explores Muholi’s
tireless work as an activist highlighting violence
towards LGBT people (April 29- October 18, 2020).Ê
Last year the Baltimore Museum of Art
took the radical step of selling seven works
from its collection by Andy Warhol, Robert
Rauschenberg and other 20th-century white
male artists to raise money for the purchase
of contemporary work by women and
artists of colour. Now it’s launching an entire
year of programming devoted to female
artists which will encompass 13 solo shows
by the likes of the American Abstract
Expressionist Joan Mitchell and the South
African video artist Candice Breitz, as well
as seven thematic exhibitions. First up is By
Their Creative Force: American Women
Modernists, which includes works by Georgia
O’Keeffe, such as her famous Pink Tulip
(above), and Elizabeth Catlett, the
American-Mexican artist best known for her
depictions of African- American life
(October 6-July 5, 2020).Ê
Speaking at the opening of her spring exhibition at the
Serpentine, Hito Steyerl spoke out against major gallery donor
the Sackler family, due to allegations that their company Purdue
Pharma has fuelled the U.S. opioid addiction crisis. Such open
criticism of the art world has made her one of the most inluential
artists today. This month, the Art Gallery of Ontario opens a
display of her video installations including key works such as Red
Alert (below) and Duty Free Art. (October 24-February 23, 2020).Force for Change
Private View Art News
By Cristina RuizVANITY FAIR ON ART NOVEMBER 201911-19-News-Women.indd 22 19/09/2019 09:00
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