Ava DuVernay’s new documentary 13th explores how the U.S. became the country with the world’s largest prison population—and why a disproportional number of those prisoners are black.
The film borrows its title from the 13th amendment to the constitution, which outlawed slavery but left a loophole. NPR calls it the film a “searing, opinionated interpretation of American history.” The Guardian writes that DuVernay leans on “eloquent talking-head interviews and well-sourced archive material” to study the links between slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration.
Front-Page Femmes
Victoria and Albert Museum curator Sonnet Stanfill discusses gender imbalance in art museum leadership. NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling adds that “women still have a long road ahead of them to gain gender parity in the museum world.”
NO MAN’S LAND artist Anicka Yi received the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize for innovative and influential work in the contemporary art world.
2016 MacArthur Fellow Kellie Jones says, “A lot of women artists don’t get any recognition…their early years are really their 50s or 60s.”
NMWA artist Amy Sherald talks to Baltimore Magazine about her education, heart failure, and professional success.
Yoko Ono unveiled her first permanent art installation in the U.S.
Hyperallergic writes, “Decades before other artists, [Florine] Stettheimer depicted a number of challenging subjects that remain controversial and relevant today.”
Artist Nidaa Badwan created a photo series chronicling 20 months she spent in self-imposed quarantine during the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Madame Tussauds in Hong Kong will open a Yayoi Kusama “artistic themed zone.”
British artist Lucy Sparrow created bodies of work that consist of more than 4,000 items made entirely of felt.
Japanese paper artist Chie Hitotsuyama creates textured sculptures of animals using rolled strips of wet newspaper.
Hauser Wirth & Schimmel will feature NO MAN’S LAND artist Isa Genzken’s I love Michael Asher.
Photographer Beth Moon documents the world’s oldest trees in her new book Ancient Skies, Ancient Trees.
A new animated biopic offers insight into Hokusai’s work through the life of his daughter, an artist in Edo-era Japan.
Six female artists, including NO MAN’S LAND painter Elizabeth Peyton, discuss Bob Dylan’s influence.
Actress Kathleen Turner discusses The Year of Magical Thinking, a play based on Joan Didion’s 2005 memoir.
Shows We Want to See
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art near Copenhagen hosts Louise Bourgeois. The Structure of Existence: The Cells, showcasing 25 of the artist’s powerful installations. Referred to as “cells” by Bourgeois, each work “is an independent spatial unit filled with carefully arranged objects which create different scenarios.”
Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s at The Photographers’ Gallery features the work of 45 female artists from across the world, including Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, and Hannah Wilke.
Grandma Moses: American Modern is on view at the Shelburne Museum. Hyperallergic writes, “The Grandma Moses story reads a lot like an artist’s fairy tale.”