Latest news with #femaleArtists
New York Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Shirley Manson, the Unexpected Godmother of Rock
An unanswered question in modern music history is: What happened to the culture that created all those amazing female artists in the 1990s? From Liz Phair to Björk to PJ Harvey to Hole to Bikini Kill to Tori Amos and others, women with wildly different sounds, looks and opinions were as critically and commercially powerful as, if not more than, men. Yet by the early 2000s, we were all living in a Disney pop star dominated world, in terms of mainstream commercial music. Shirley Manson, the Scottish musician who has, for 31 years, been the frontwoman of Garbage, one of the most successful rock bands of the era and a major contributor to this woman-powered '90s culture, has a fascinating theory. 'Sept. 11th stopped all alternative female voices in their tracks, because when people get scared, they get conservative and what does a conservative society loathe? A dangerous woman,' she said. 'The fact is, they stopped playing alternative female voices on the radio,' Ms. Manson added, sitting in her favorite cafe in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles this April. 'I remember someone at Interscope Records telling me KROQ [Los Angeles's alternative rock station] will only play one woman, and it's Gwen Stefani, and therefore we're putting all our marketing money into No Doubt. That literally became the dead end for that incredible explosion of female-empowered alternative voices, which were a direct result of that first incredible wave of alternative women: Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Stevie Nicks. My generation was a response to that. Our careers exploded, so we were like, 'Oh, hey, everything's cool, everything has changed, the ceiling has been broken.' And then we hit 2001 and it fell to the earth.' She shook her head, continuing: 'We've now seen two decades of very carefully managed, young, mostly solo, mostly Disney, mostly theater school kids, and they're great! It brings people a lot of joy. To make somebody dance — what a great gift. I could cry just saying that. But as a result, we've also lost the esoteric and the fragile and the dark and the spooky and the fury and all the things that a patriarchal society considers not fitting for a young woman's mind.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Wall Street Journal
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into Art' Review: An Overlooked Painter's Overflowing Flora
Toledo, Ohio Renowned in her time, with her paintings in high demand, Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) has nonetheless been largely ignored by museums. She has never had a major monographic exhibition, not even in her hometown of Amsterdam. Undeniably, it could be a challenge: Ruysch almost exclusively painted still lifes—the main genre open to female artists at the time—and almost always floral arrangements. Roomfuls of Ruysches, no matter how exquisite, might feel like a florist's shop.
The Herald
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald
SA-born artist Marlene Dumas breaks record with R246m sale
A 1997 art piece painted by South African-born artist Marlene Dumas has sold for more than R230m at Christie's New York, setting a new benchmark for female artists in the 21st century art market. Dumas' provocative 2.74m-tall oil painting Miss January sold for a staggering $13.635m (R246.7m) on Wednesday, setting a new world record for a living female artist. The monumental portrait, a striking image of a blonde woman nude from the waist down, captivated collectors during the 21st Century Evening Sale held via Instagram Live and YouTube. Auctioneer Yü-Ge Wang, associate director and senior client adviser at Christie's, led the sale which saw fierce bidding and ultimately achieved a total of $96.5m (R1.75bn). An impressive 92% of lots were sold by number and 97% by value, with four artists breaking auction records: Louis Fratino, Simone Leigh, Emma McIntyre and Dumas. Dumas' record surpasses the previous benchmark held by British painter Jenny Saville, whose work Propped (1992) sold for £9.5m (R228m) at Sotheby's London in 2018. Despite this groundbreaking achievement, Dumas' sale still trails the record for a living male artist Jeff Koons' Rabbit (1986), which sold for $91.07m (R1.65bn) in 2019. Christie's reflected on Dumas' evolution as an artist, stating: 'Dumas started exploring and scrutinising the female form at age 10, with a drawing called Miss World ' which depicted idolised glamour models. More than 30 years later, she returned to the subject with Miss January , a portrait that threads the line between revealing and concealing, and serves as perhaps the best example of her influential female portraiture.' Born in Cape Town in 1953, Dumas is based in the Netherlands, where she represented the country at the 1995 Venice Biennale and was later featured in the central pavilion in 2015.
