1. Rediscovering Under-Recognized Talents: The Unusual Artist List of the 2022 Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major international art exhibition that is held every two years in Venice, Italy. It is known for showcasing the work of up-and-coming artists and attracting significant attention from the art world. However, the 2021 edition of the Biennale garnered headlines for a different reason: the unusual makeup of its artist list.
Approximately 90% of the artists included in the main show were women or gender nonconforming, and 95 of the 213 artists included were no longer alive. The earliest-born of these deceased artists, Maria Sibylla Merian, died in 1717. While there were also emerging artists featured in the Biennale, this unusual focus on under-recognized talents and deceased artists was notable and received significant attention.
Many of these artists who are no longer alive were well-connected during their lifetime and were even part of well-known avant-garde movements such as Surrealism and Dada. Despite this, their work has not always received the recognition it deserves. The inclusion of these artists in the Venice Biennale is an important step in acknowledging their contributions and giving them the recognition they deserve.
This trend of rediscovering and giving overdue recognition to under-recognized artists can be seen in institutions across the globe. By highlighting the work of these artists, the art world is able to expand its understanding and appreciation of the art of the past and present. The 2021 Venice Biennale serves as an affirmation that this trend is very much alive and continues to be an important part of the art world.
Barbara Chase-Riboud
Barbara Chase-Riboud is an artist known for creating abstract sculptures dedicated to important figures in Black history, such as civil rights activist Malcolm X and Sarah Baartman. These sculptures, which blend elements of Baroque art and high modernism, have gained her many fans over the years. In 2022, Chase-Riboud had her first retrospective exhibit at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, and a survey of her work is currently on view at the Serpentine Galleries. This year, Princeton University Press also published a memoir by Chase-Riboud in the form of letters sent to her mother.
Kamala Ibrahim Ishag
Kamala Ibrahim Ishag is a Sudanese modernist artist known for painting images that envision alternate states and feature mysterious figures arranged in circles and people merging with trees. Ishag, who is associated with the Khartoum School, signed the manifesto of the Crystalist group in 1978, which aimed to create "a new language and new poetry" that could communicate spiritual truths in new ways. In fall 2022, Ishag had a retrospective exhibit at the Serpentine Galleries in London, which was co-organized with the Sharjah Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates, where the show will travel to in 2023. This exhibition was a long overdue recognition of Ishag's contributions to the art world.
Oscar Howe
Oscar Howe was a Yanktonai Dakota painter whose work was often rejected by white-led institutions because it did not conform to their expectations of Native American art. However, a retrospective exhibit of Howe's work, which opened at the National Museum of the American Indian, received critical acclaim and was considered one of the best shows in New York in 2022. The exhibit, curated by Kathleen Ash-Milby, showcased Howe's ability to merge Očhéthi Šakówiŋ aesthetics with modernist abstraction and featured representations of dancers and animals in warping mixtures of color. The exhibit is currently on view at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine, and will travel to the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings in 2023.
Darrel Ellis
Darrel Ellis was an artist who was closely associated with the AIDS and art movement, and was featured in Nan Goldin's 1989 exhibition "Witnesses: Our Vanishing." Despite being a significant figure in this movement, Ellis was not widely recognized until recently, when a 2021 monograph by Visual AIDS highlighted his work. Ellis's oeuvre included re-photographed pictures originally taken by his father and painted portraits in which he depicted himself in stereotypical roles for Black men, such as a Black Panther and a security guard. In 2022, a retrospective of Ellis's work was held at the Baltimore Museum of Art, offering a more thorough examination of his career. The exhibition will travel to the Bronx Museum in 2023. Ellis passed away from AIDS-related complications at the age of 33 in 1992.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's writing and art have gained wider recognition in recent years, particularly with the support of figures like writer Cathy Park Hong. In 2022, Cha's most famous written work, Dictee, was re-released by the University of California Press and her visual art was featured in the Whitney Biennial. The Whitney Biennial exhibit served as an informal survey of Cha's work, which was tragically cut short when she was raped and murdered in New York at the age of 31 in 1982. Cha's works at the Whitney Biennial demonstrated her use of text, performance, video, and the spoken word to rearrange language and explore the transmission of ideas.
Maria Bartuszová
Maria Bartuszová was a relatively unknown figure until this year, despite achieving recognition in Slovakia during her lifetime. Bartuszová created sculptures by filling balloons and tires with plaster, then tying them up so that they appeared to be bulging or growing as they dried. These works were called "living organisms" because they seemed to be in motion. Bartuszová's sculptures, which also included eggshell-like forms and partially formed creatures, were exhibited at the Tate Modern in London in a retrospective that provided one of the most comprehensive looks at her art to date beyond central and eastern Europe. Some of her sculptures were also featured in the main show at the Venice Biennale, where they were included in an exhibition about how artists in the past had created vessel-like objects.
Raphael Montañez Ortiz
The retrospective of Raphael Montañez Ortiz at El Museo del Barrio and Museo Tamayo featured a variety of his artwork, including his "destructivism" pieces that involved the destruction of objects, as well as his earlier work with Abstract Expressionism and later assemblages that explored colonialism. The exhibition also included documentation of his smashing of pianos and furniture, and other projects that promoted artistic collaboration. Montañez Ortiz is known for founding El Museo del Barrio in 1969 as a space for Puerto Rican art.
Fujiko Nakaya
The Fujiko Nakaya retrospective at Haus der Kunst in Munich was the first museum show to comprehensively survey the Japanese artist's work. Nakaya is known for her fog sculptures, which fill galleries or outdoor spaces with dense fog that dissipates gradually. The exhibition also highlighted Nakaya's role in introducing video art to Japan, where she founded the artist collective Video Hiroba and opened the country's first video art gallery, SCAN, in Tokyo. The show featured some of Nakaya's lesser-known works, including pieces that aim to scramble perception and encourage a new relationship with the natural environment.
Maria Prymachenko
In February, Russian troops in Ivankiv, Ukraine burned 25 paintings by Ukrainian artist Maria Prymachenko. These paintings were seen as a symbol of national identity in Ukraine and their destruction caused sadness among those interested in Ukrainian art history. The status of the paintings is unclear, but some may have been saved as the museum where they were housed was also burned. In response to these events, Prymachenko's paintings were added to the Venice Biennale as a sign of solidarity with Ukrainian culture.
Ovartaci
Ovartaci was a Danish artist who identified as female for much of their life, but later identified as male. They spent 56 years in a Danish mental institution and created dolls that they claimed represented beings from other universes. Ovartaci's work, which includes visions of thin-waisted aliens and phantasmagorical landscapes, was largely unknown to the public until it was included in the Venice Biennale. A museum in Aarhus, Denmark is devoted to the artist, but a retrospective of their work is needed to fully appreciate their contributions to art.
2. Stephen Tayo: From Philosophy Student to Renowned Photographer
Stephen Tayo is a 28-year-old photographer from Lagos, Nigeria who has gained recognition for his portraits of African cultural figures and his documentation of Nigerian fashion sense for publications such as the New York Times, Vogue, and Vice. Tayo's work was featured in the group exhibition "Human Stories: The Satirists" at the NOW Gallery in London, which explored the use of satire in photography to examine interconnected identities of gender, race, and class. Tayo's series "Which Lagos You Dey?" was part of the exhibition and employs depersonalization by replacing human subjects with anonymous figures representing Lagos-specific rituals. Tayo learned photography through watching YouTube tutorials while studying philosophy at the University of Lagos and is influenced by photographers such as Seydou Keita, Malick Sidibe, and Samuel Fosso. He has worked on campaigns for Dutch streetwear brand Patta and Nike, Havana Club, and Apple, and received a nomination at the British Fashion Council Awards in 2020.