The Shadow Pandemic

The United Nations General Assembly has designated this day International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women… These are many words strung together to be ascribed to a single day. By truism, this is a proposition that states really nothing beyond what is implied by its terms. An otherwise unnecessary existence, but in the reality of 1 in 3 women having experienced such violence in their life time, its raison d’être is self evident. The more awkward half of this tautology would be to pronounce that 1 in 3 of us male counterparts have committed violence against a women in our lives.

It is an unfortunate supposition, but one which does not require any doubt or denial in order to understand. And verily, to simply understand is to not deny. There would not exist a man more useless. If only we could be as diligent with a more noble task – a perversion of promise in keeping with being a man, like the emperor with no clothes who will not concede.

Whereas, in many countries femicide is still classified as honorable; Whereas, sex-trafficking is often protected under the guise of marriage; Whereas, executive misogyny is buried with hush money or excused as locker room talk…

Reported by every relevant and reliable organization, the dramatic spike in incidences, at times twofold in the confined conditions of a worldly pandemic, has made the awareness of what is now called the Shadow Pandemic that much more crucial. This virus, which has existed for a far greater period of time and whose rate of contagion is perhaps the highest known – with the spreader population in denial even more staggering – has not yet a cure. Long after the vaccine for Covid is distributed around the world and we are more or less safe in one another’s air space, this Shadow Pandemic will continue behind closed quarters.

“Violence is not confined to the battlefield. For many women and girls, the threat looms largest where they should be safest. In their own homes.” –António Guterres, UN Secretary-General.

This, given everything else in history, begs the lamentation, how is it that we are still alive? That is perhaps a discussion for another day. Today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Whereas, now, therefore, teach our sons.

Today, we feature women artists who have created and inspired.

Lena Jeanne

HER

Presenting the works of Ramona Deckers, Tiffany Roubert, and Lena Jeanne, exploring the different approaches and influences of intimate documentary photography from a female gaze. On view online through December 8, 2020 at In Frame.

Trine Sondergaard

CHART Art Fair 2020

CHART, marking the eighth edition of the annual Nordic festival for contemporary art, launched its de-centered program of exhibitions and events, and notably, this year to highlight the structural challenge of gender imbalance in the art industry presenting all women artists with certain installations still on display in various galleries. Among the participants included Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, and artists Anastasia Ax, Anna Bjerger, Candida Höfer, Chantal Joffe, Eva Schlegel.

Marie Chouinard

Jardin de Sculptures Ephémères

The MAC Montreal recently presented the world premiere of Jardin de Sculptures Ephémères – Acte 1, a new performance by dancer and choreographer Marie Chouinard on its digital platforms. Recently closed at The MAC, but still viewable on other platforms.

Ornella Mazzola / Females

Ornella Mazzola

Ornella Mazzola presented a glimpse into Females, her ongoing series capturing the women in her family. “Photography was a way of approaching them, bridging the distance, in silence and on tiptoes.”

Helen Cammock

These works by Helen Cammock in What Can Be Done / Che si può fare interweave women’s stories of loss and resilience with 17th Century Baroque music by female composers, exploring lament in women’s lives across histories and geographies. Presented at Collezione Maramotti earlier this year.

Ekaterina Anchevskaya

Ekaterina Anchevskaya, among 2018’s 30 Under 30 Women Photographers presented Forgiving, an ongoing documentary about people who left the world to start a new life in a monastery. This place is a salvation for many who came to seek help in times of hopelessness. She has recently published I Remember Nothing, a limited edition photo book in collaboration with Jessica Nguyen.

Newsha Tavakolian

Newsha Tavakolian, along with three others from Magnum Photos, to mark 30 years of the Sakharov Prize, worked with remarkable individuals, all staunch defenders of human rights, to shine a light on their work in They Defend Our Freedoms. A commission for European Parliament, these stories are gathered in a recent book and exhibition serialized on Magnum’s site.

Sally Mann

With many previously unpublished works, the exhibit A Thousand Crossings offers an overview of Sally Mann’s artistic achievement as well as a focused exploration on the continuing influence of the South on her work. Her traveling exhibition was previously presented at Jeu de Paume, Paris, at High Museum of Art in Atlanta, as well as at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, and featured in The Treachery of Memory by Alexandra Gilliams.

Jocelyn Lee, Jenna and the Fallen Apples, 2016

Thirty Years of Women

This exhibit drew from Jackson Fine Art’s 30 year history of showing some of the most distinguished female voices in photography, illustrative of the gallery’s evolving vision through the years. Artists include Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, Cig Harvey, Dorothea Lange, Helen Levitt, Sally Mann, Alex Prager, among others.

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 previously at Howard Greenberg Gallery and more recently in September this year, Works in Color at Foam Amsterdam.

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, and by many accounts outdoing these masters, premiered at Fondation Beyeler.

Hellen van Meene

The Bird in Borrowed Feathers

Echoing traditional Dutch paintings, Hellen van Meene’s photography presented at James Freeman Gallery found glimpses into intimate inner worlds and brought their fragility to light in ways that are sometimes surreal and unsettling.

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 was also on view with some of her counterparts Bruce Davidson and Stephen Shore, among others in the exhibition Aperture Photographs at Aperture Foundation.

Lise Sarfati

In The Next Door Room

The awakening of adolescence has been a recurring theme fascinating many artists; conflicts of identity, physical metamorphosis, psychological instability, emerging sexual and emotional sensations. Photography of Lise Sarfati; Text by Javier Panera Cuevas / Domus Artium Salamanca.

Rachel Jump / 2020

30 Under 30 Women Photographers

Given the situation with the global pandemic and the impact it has had on artists and the art industry as a whole, the 2020 group of 30 Under 30 Women Photographers gave occasion to launch Artpil’s virtual exhibition space. Here we present the full list of photographers, updated for 2022.

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

“Not until the half of our population represented by women and girls can live free from fear, violence and everyday insecurity, can we truly say we live in a fair and equal world.” –António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

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