Gego Is Finally Getting Her Due as an Innovator of Kinetic Art in a Guggenheim Retrospective

Whether or not you know the life and work German-Venezuelan artist Gego (1912–1994) may depend on where in the world you call home. The deeply influential artist—best known for her conceptual and elegant wire sculptures—has routinely been hailed as one of the most influential figures of post-war Latin American art. In the United States, particularly, however, her recognition has been slow-coming when compared to the fame of her contemporaries.

Warm-toned abstract paintings using dots and lines

Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s warm-toned abstract paintings use dots and lines specific to her Aboriginal heritage to create immersive works of art. The painter’s somewhat expressionistic style is a testament to the genre’s global footprint that extended beyond, and came before, the work of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. 

In remembrance of Phyllida Barlow (1944–2023)

Phyllida Barlow was one of the most important British sculptors of her generation, whose work often transformed quotidian materials—plywood, cardboard, cement, fabric, plastic—into what she called “very impractical and very illogical” pieces of unexpected beauty

Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in the small town of Galesburg

Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in the small town of Galesburg, Illinois in the United States. She died in 2012 in New York, aged 101. Amazingly, she continued to create art and poetry until the end of her life

Vera Molnár, the 98-Year-Old Generative Art Pioneer

Starting with the simple geometric forms that she favored—in this case concentric squares—Molnár introduced random patterns of disruption through an algorithm, giving the work a lively rhythm as the lines vibrate with variation. 

Pop Art Visionary Marisol Was All But Forgotten. Now, a New Exhibition Places Her on Equal Footing With Her Pal Andy Warhol

Certain artistic subject matter overlaps between the two as well—both make references to the Kennedys and Coca Cola. As a Venezuelan artist, however, Marisol’s handling of these themes hints at the very real political implications of American expansionism in South America. The totemic qualities of her sculptures, too, hint at Pre-Columbian traditions. Materially, the artists were diametrically distinct; Marisol’s works are made from the hands-on process of carpentry, while Warhol’s devoted himself to silkscreening, which detached the artist’s hand. 

Artist Sarah Morris on Why She Started Painting Spiderwebs During Lockdown

Since the mid-1990s, Morris has honed a visual language of geometric, color-blocked paintings and installations that derive from the man-made structures and systems of cities around the world. She devotes entire series to individual locations (Los Angeles, Midtown Manhattan, Washington D.C., Beijing… the list goes on) and ponders the public transportation, architecture, and industries. 

Charting the Storm

German artist Benedikt Partenheimer (b. 1977) uses concept-led photography and subtle optical tricks to reveal the invisible effects of climate change. A new book from Hatje Cantz, The Weather Is Fine, gathers together a career’s worth of such images

Sílvio Teixeira (19/11/1928 - 26/7/2016) by KarlOwn

 

Phillip King, Influential British Sculptor, Has Died at 87

Initially, King was turned off by abstraction, but a visit to Athens, where he saw the Parthenon situated in the hilly landscape, changed all that. “My later reluctance to see abstraction as something worthwhile was to do with it being cerebral and not from nature,” he told the Guardian in 2014. “Greece allowed me to rediscover how things can be of the mind but also of nature, and the idea of using gravity as a way to make things stand up.”

Yayoi Kusama’s Colorful, Plant-Filled Creations Capture the Spirit of Summer

Over her nearly 70-year career, Kusama has refined her unique visual language, taking inspiration from the world around her (her signature polka dots motif was supposedly inspired by a hallucination she experienced while staring at a tablecloth as a child). 

“Paula Rego is the kind of artist who paints a soldier in a leopard-print gimp mask, a little girl shaving her pet dog and the devil’s wife in nipple tassels”

"Months later I received a package in the mail, a lithograph of me, hawkish, offering Jane Eyre to be inspected by Mr. Rochester. Six months later, another package arrived, this time much smaller, and in it was a beautifully wrapped set of Jane Eyre postage stamps made by the British government, with my evil profile. In true Paula fashion, she insisted that the women be made into first class stamps, the men, second. In her revolutionary drawings, painting and graphic work, she has always put women first."

Louise Bourgeois

 

Shoplifter / Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir

is one of Iceland’s leading contemporary artists, based in New York. Working with both synthetic and natural hair, her sculptures, wall murals and site-specific installations explore themes of vanity, self-image, fashion, beauty and popular myth. For Shoplifter hair is the ultimate thread that grows from our body. Hair is an original, creative fiber, a way for people to distinguish themselves as individuals, and often an art form.

How Mildred Thompson’s Vibrating Canvases Envisioned Our World As It Could Be

The paintings she made in Atlanta were informed by color theory—she juxtaposed contrasting and complementary hues with each other to ensure that the canvases popped. In her famed “Magnetic Fields” series (1990), Thompson considered the theory that magnetic waves were yellow when seen on an ultraviolet scale.

4,400-Year-Old Shaman’s Snake Staff Found in Endangered Finnish Wetland

The shaman’s staff would have been used in a religious or spiritual ceremony. Perhaps it was even used to communicate with the dead

Why artist Eileen Agar’s 'womb magic' speaks to our times

As subsequent events were soon to confirm, it was rather optimistic of the artist Eileen Agar to declare in 1931 that the “feminine type of imagination” she identified as “womb magic” was a force capable of countering the “rampant and hysterical militarism” rising across Europe.

Maerten van Heemskerck’s right altar wing with female donor (around 1540)

 

Magazines Are Swapping Out Celebrity Covers for Artworks by Famous Artists in a Bid to Stay Relevant

Last summer, after weeks of protests precipitated by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two of the country’s most recognizable magazines used their covers to make a statement. And they each turned to artists—not photographers—to do it. 

Archaeological Discoveries Suggest Ancient Women Were Waaay More Powerful Than You May Believe

Taking her name from the dig site of Wilamaya Patjxa, the ancient teen was buried with an array of tools used for hunting large animals: a projectile, a knife, and other miscellaneous items geared towards processing game.