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Asia | China | Arts

‘Shanghai Is an Adventurous Place’: Why Dealer Almine Rech Is Opening Her Fifth Gallery in the Chinese City Next Month

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With spaces in Paris, London, New York, and Brussels, French dealer Almine Rech has quietly reached mega-gallery status, and now she’s set to add yet another location to her list: Shanghai. Rech says she has witnessed the Asian art market blossom over the last decade, so much so that it no longer made business sense to just participate in the fairs there. “The market has evolved a lot,” Rech tells artnet News. “Now, for instance, in the West Bund fair in Shanghai or Art Basel Hong Kong—which I’ve participated in for much longer as it’s an older fair—we sell mostly to Asians
North America | United States | Arts

Dallas Opera Institute for Women Conductors spotlights six in concert

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Although women have made great strides in many walks of life, they're still rarely seen conducting orchestras, in either symphony concerts or operas. On Saturday night, though, six women took turns leading the Dallas Opera Orchestra and various singers at the Winspear Opera House. The concert was a sort of graduation ceremony for participants in the Dallas Opera's second annual Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors. The women, all in early stages of careers, hailed from six different countries. Four additional observers sat in on the two-week institute, but did not conduct on
Europe | France | Activism

Muslim Hip-Hop Dancers Break Down Stereotypes While Breaking It Down In Niqab

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The hip-hop group “We’re Muslim, Don’t Panic“ was conceived of by dancer Amirah Sackett in 2011, a moment Sackett referred to as “a really tumultuous time in history as far as Islam is concerned.” Just seven years earlier, France banned students from wearing hijab to school, the headscarves that in Islamic tradition represent modesty and morality. Although much of the Western rhetoric surrounding the hijab, niqab and burka focuses on the importance of freedom and empowerment, Sackett noticed that by forbidding women to wear certain clothing, France wasn’t liberating women, bu
International | Arts

8 Women Poets You Need To Know About For National Poetry Month

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This April is the 20th National Poetry Month, and what better way to celebrate than by curling up with a good book? While most of us can name at least a few women in the field, here’s a list of contemporary poets you may not be familiar with. 1. Claudia Rankine - Rankine is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and has published five volumes of poetry, two plays and various essays 2. Tracy K. Smith - Smith's book Life on Mars (Graywolf 2011) was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. 3. Natasha Tretheway - Tretheway’s work often explores the lives and jobs of worki
North America | Canada | Activism

Dancer Santee Smith offers a new way to consider indigenous women’s issues

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Award-winning choreographer and dancer Santee Smith wanted to think about indigenous women’s issues in a new way. She wanted to incite a fresh dialogue on women, reconciliation and healing – and part of that dialogue meant reframing the idea of “truths.” By assembling a team of internationally renowned indigenous women artists, she’s put together an interdisciplinary show called Re-Quickening, which opens at Toronto’s Fleck Dance Theatre next week. The Globe and Mail caught up with Smith in Toronto. Read the full interview at the source.
South Asia | Afghanistan | Activism

Afghan teenager braves threats, family pressure to lead women’s orchestra

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Like many teenagers, 19-year-old Negin Khpalwak from Kunar in eastern Afghanistan loves music, but few people of her age have battled as fiercely to pursue their passion in the face of family hostility and threats. Playing instruments was banned outright during the period of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and even today, many conservative Muslims frown on most forms of music. Negin took her first steps learning music in secret, before eventually revealing her activity to her father. He encouraged her, but the reaction from the rest of her conservative Pashtun family was hostile.
Caribbean | Cuba | Arts

Meet Cuba’s All-Female Orchestra

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Cuba is famous for its music. A lot of people have heard of artists like the Buena Vista Social Club and Celia Cruz. But the country also has a long history of cultivating classical composers and performers. On a recent trip to Cuba, I met one group that stands out. In a country as stereotyped for its machismo as it is for its mambos, you might think an all-female classical ensemble would face an uphill struggle. But Cuban conductor Zenaida Romeu says that's not so. Romeu founded her group, Camerata Romeu, 23 years ago. She wanted to show off the parity between men and women she saw in h
International | Arts

One of the Most Successful Women in the History of Art Finally Receives Retrospective

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Portrait painting exhibitions rarely draw in the big crowds, but this retrospective of Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, at the Metropolitan Museum, is quite the exception. Not least because of the artist’s compelling life story: an autodidact, she was one of the most successful artists of the Late Baroque period, court painter and official portraitist of Marie Antoinette, escapee of the French Revolution, and an artist in exile, traveling from France to Italy, Germany, and Russia before finally returning to France after more than 12 years, as one of the most sought-after portraitists throug
North America | United States | Arts

Anita Sarkeesian Launches Groundbreaking New Web Series

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Last week, media critic and creator of Feminist Frequency Anita Sarkeesianannounced a new project: a video series called Ordinary Women: Daring to Defy History. Sarkeesian rose to prominence with her first web series Tropes Vs. Women, in which she critiques the tired sexist roles played by female characters in video games (i.e. the damsel in distress, women as background decoration). This doesn't sound particularly controversial, right? Still, many gamers — mostly young white men — lashed out in fear and anger. Sarkeesian has faced death threats and rape threats, violent pornographic image
International | Arts

Photojournalist Ilana Rose Captures Women of the World

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As a prominent Australian photojournalist, Rose has covered subculture and social justice for over 25 years. From S&M culture in the 90s, to indigenous justice at the Koori Courts, and Australian women's affairs—every photo that surrounds us in her Brunswick home stands as a time capsule, quiet vigils to moments in our history. Rose's most recent exhibition comes after a four-year stint with World Vision, delving head first into the state of modern gender inequality. She ventured to third world countries all over the globe, such as Ethiopia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Uganda, Per
South Asia | Afghanistan | Activism

Afghanistan’s First Female Street Artist Brings Hijabs And Feminism To City Walls

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A woman in a purple hijab sits playing the piano, a tear rolling down her cheek. She plays her solitary tune amongst a sea of blue skyscrapers, soaring above the cars that zoom beneath her unnoticed. This subject already wears her contradictions proudly -- she is strong, she is vulnerable, she is graceful, creative, separate, sad. And yet, at least it seems, she calls out to no one, content to sit with her feelings and express herself creatively, freely, in peace. This work of street art was made by Shamsia Hassani, widely known as the first prominent woman street artist in Afghanistan. H
Europe | Great Britain | Arts

Tate Modern appoints its first British and first female director

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Tate Modern has appointed its first British director. Frances Morris, 57, currently director of collection at Tate, will also become the museum’s first female director when she takes the helm later this year. Her appointment, which comes at a time when European and Americans occupy some of the most senior positions within British arts institutions, was hailed by industry figures as “absolutely the right choice”. She will replace Belgium-born Chris Dercon, who was appointed Tate Modern’s third director in 2010.
North America | Canada | Activism

Eekwol Fights for Aboriginal Women’s Rights Through Hip-Hop

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Hip-hop’s roots are inextricably linked to political, socioeconomic, and racial inequality. Not that you might think of those things while turning up at a party or waxing poetic on a hoverboard. Enter the conscious rapper to remind us what’s real. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan’s Eekwol raps about her Canadian prairie surroundings and Cree culture. Born Lindsay Knight, she began performing in the late 90s with her brother Mils and five cousins under the banner of Innersoulflow. Eventually, the members went solo, but Eekwol continued to promote social change and the quest for knowledge and self
Europe | U.K. | Arts

Saatchi Gallery’s all-female exhibition

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Awhite-haired woman looks unnervingly across a huge white space in the Saatchi Gallery from ashen eyes magnified by huge tortoiseshell-framed spectacles. What has she seen? What does she know? And why does her judgment seem so severe? Ljubica is one of three colossal portraits of older women by Jelena Bulajić that feature in Champagne Life, an exhibition entirely by female artists that opens at the Saatchi next week. Bulajić is in her 20s, but the women she portrays bear the marks of time: they are “old women”, but here one of modern society’s most marginalised identities is painte

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