International Women's Day / 2019

Founded over a hundred years ago evolving through various names and dates, this fulcrum of women’s rights, International Women’s Day, was adopted by the United Nations only in 1975 and still largely overlooked in many countries. And still, today, in board rooms and senate chambers, in court houses as in locker rooms, it feels we are living in highly primitive times.

Since Artpil’s founding, we covered the #MeToo movement, traced the Elimination of Violence Against Women and counted down to the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the sometimes overlooked World Day of Social Justice. These are all interconnected.

Still, today, in board rooms and senate chambers, in court houses as in locker rooms, it feels we are living in highly primitive times.

Often our better halves, and without whom we could not be, we renew our commitment to engage. Once again, we celebrate the women who have inspired and created in the art world.

Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier, whose work is often overlooked among the great photographers, captured the spontaneity of street scenes with precision reminiscent of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Her exhibition The Color Work took place earlier this year at Howard Greenberg Gallery

Anna-Eva Bergman

Anna-Eva Bergman’s painting is inseparable from that experience of the world and from the enigma of its existence, both a wall erected in front of us and a horizon line that flees in the distance. Her exhibition From North to South, Rhythms is on view through May 5, 2019 at Bombas Gens.

Emma Portner / Femme Debout, trailer

Emma Portner

Emma Portner’s complex and delicate choreography draws on the grotesque, the artificial, and extreme emotionality, her extraordinary performances leaving her audiences breathless. Her performance, Femme Debout, responding to the exhibition Francis Bacon & Alberto Giacometti, premiered last summer at Fondation Beyeler.

Hannah Starkey

Using actors within carefully considered settings, Hannah Starkey’s photographs reconstruct scenes from everyday life with the concentrated stylization of film. Her works are currently featured in Aesthetica’s Future Now Symposium 2019 in York, UK.

Chantal Joffe

With a combination of insight and integrity, as well as psychological and emotional force, to the genre of figurative art, Chantal Joffe is currently represented in two international group exhibitions, Works on Paper through April 6, 2019 at Galleri Bo Bjerggaard and Rehang which opened this week at Collezione Maramotti.

Anna Winteler

Basel-resident Anna Winteler has, since the early 1980s, been among the most significant Swiss video and performance artists. She has had an enduring influence on the scene, her Works with the Body currently on view through April 28, 2019 at Kunsthaus Baselland.

Dorothea Lange

One of the giants in photography, Dorothea Lange’s work has been compelling in the documentary field. Her works have been featured in The American Document: New Visions in Documentary Photography 1931-1976 at Huxley-Parlour Gallery and is also currently on view with some of her counterparts Bruce Davidson and Stephen Shore, among others in the exhibition Aperture Photographs at Aperture.

Senta Simond

Senta Simond, equally at home with both color and black & white, her portrait works often border on infectious fashion editorials. She has been nominated for Aperture / Paris Photo First Book, Wallpaper Graduate Directory and British Journal of Photography Ones to Watch 2018. She is the winner of Swiss Design Awards 2018 and she was recently featured among Foam Talents 2019.

Paulina Metzscher

30 Under 30 Women Photographers

And of course, our very own 30 Under 30 Women Photographers entering its 10th edition with the 2019 group, this annual selection has helped emerging, mid-career, as well as some accomplished women photographers to gain further exposure and participate in the collective among peers. With styles ranging from art photography to documentary, portraiture to street and fashion, the works have been overwhelmingly well received.

The 2017 group exhibited in Rome in collaboration with CultRise and Dude Magazine; 2018 was presented along with Maison Photo and shown at Galerie Claude Samuel in Paris. This year’s group promises more exposure throughout the year.