The Guardian discusses why the Baileys prize, the women’s prize for fiction writing, is still needed after 20 years. Research found that “women were responsible for buying two thirds of books sold in the U.S. and U.K.,” however reviews often cover more books written by men.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun won the “Best of the Best” award in a celebration marking the 20th anniversary of the Baileys women’s prize. The chairs and judges from previous years picked Adichie’s book as the best fiction work in a decade.
Front-Page Femmes
Artist Poppy Jackson sat naked on a London rooftop in a performance piece. Comments received from the media “prove why artwork presenting the female body from a woman’s perspective is so important.”
Russian philanthropist and art collector Dasha Zhukova gives one million dollars to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a new visiting artist program.
Cynthia Daignault traveled around the U.S. for six months, documenting the landscape every 25 miles. Her resulting work, Light Atlas, contains 360 paintings from her journey.
The Victoria & Albert Museum declined a trove of Margaret Thatcher’s clothes for their collection. The Telegraph says the museum is “ignoring the social, economic and political messages of clothes.”
Shannon Goff re-creates her grandfather’s 1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V—out of cardboard.
Australian artist and Holocaust survivor Judy Cassab died at the age of 95. Cassab was the first woman to win the Archibald portrait prize twice.
ArtInfo interviews French jewelry designer Victoire de Castellane after she won the Visionaries! Award by the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD).
Lost interviews with arts philanthropist Peggy Guggenheim are brought to light in a new biographical film.
Vulture shares their list of 100 women directors Hollywood should be hiring.
A new documentary focuses on the life of Australian Black Panther, artist, and activist Marlene Cummins.
Conductor and pianist Alondra de la Parra is the first female chief conductor and musical director of one of Australia’s three largest orchestras.
Mary Testa plays Barbara Bush in the chamber musical First Daughter Suite.
Shows We Want to See
In her first U.S. solo exhibition, video artist Rachel Rose explores the cosmos and attempts to “transport viewers into the void.”
Kara Walker’s latest exhibition, Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First, is on view in London. Hyperallergic reviews the extent to which Walker’s works “and the racism they illuminate, are steeped in America’s unique history.”
Featuring work by 45 artists, Modern Scottish Women shows that the interests of 19th-century woman artists were “broad and unflinching.”
Lynda Benglis: Water Sources at Storm King Art Center presents large outdoor sculptures and an installation of smaller works which “play at rituality and point to a chimera of ruin.”