The 2019 Honolulu Biennial achieved a level of diversity that is rare among international art events. Almost half of the 47 featured artists were women and a majority were of indigenous descent.

Curator Nina Tonga kept diversity at the forefront of her planning and sought to create a new biennial model. Harper’s Bazaar describes the result as “an inclusive, engaging event that spread over more than ten sites throughout Honolulu, including public spaces, and which had more than 90 free programs.”

Front-Page Femmes

Baton Rouge activist and curator Sadie Roberts-Joseph was found dead on July 12; she founded the city’s nonprofit Odell S. Williams Now & Then Museum of African American History in 2001.

Solange Knowles has partnered with art institutions worldwide to host free screenings of her performance art film When I Get Home—a “dreamy film [that] pays homage to the legacy of Black cowboys and Afrofuturism.”

The Atlantic profiles writer-director Lulu Wang and her new film The Farewell, highlighting her struggles to find support for the project, and how she stayed true to her story, culture, and self.

Tate has announced the acquisition of the vast archive of little-known British surrealist Ithell Colquhoun, whom they hope “will finally get the credit and recognition she deserves.”

Clara Wieck Schumann was regarded as one of the leading keyboard celebrities of the early 19th century—but even on the bicentennial of her birth, she remains overlooked.

artnet News interviews Ecuador-born graffiti artist Lady Pink who successfully made a space for herself in the male-dominated scene; her work is currently on view in Beyond the Streets.

NPR profiles sculptor Augusta Savage, whose work is on view in a retrospective at the New-York Historical Society through July 28.

Hyperallergic looks at how artist Mari Katayama uses self-portraiture to dismantle expected notions of beauty and sexuality.

The New Yorker tells the story of Françoise Gilot, Picasso’s lover and pupil—and a master painter herself.

Serpentine Galleries curator Lucia Pietroiusti emerges as a poignant voice in challenging the art world to acknowledge and tackle climate change.

Shows We Want to See

The Linda McCartney Retrospective is on view at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland. This first major retrospective of the late photographer’s work is curated by Paul McCartney and their two daughters, Mary and Stella. It features dozens of photographs and archival material shown to the public for the first time. McCartney was a successful photographer and worked regularly for Rolling Stone, becoming the first woman to land a photograph on the coveted cover slot.

At the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, I Am…Contemporary Women Artists of Africa explores the contributions of women to numerous issues including the environment, identity, politics, race, and more. The show is part of the museum’s Women’s Initiative Fund, an effort to increase its representation of female artists. An assessment seven years ago found that just 11 percent of the attributed works in its collections were by women artists.