Few institutional shows have dwelled on the question of what happens to the convention of the muse when both an artist and their subject are women. “Women Painting Women” at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is among the exceptions to explore that potent alchemy of talent, gender identity, and insight. Conceived by chief curated by Andrea Karnes, it features some 50 female-identifying artists spanning the 1960s—the earliest painting is by Alice Neel—to today.

In the show, hallowed names in feminist art are represented; among them are Faith Ringgold, Marylin Minter, and Paula Rego. Younger artists like Jordan Casteel and Apolonia Sokol are given prominent placement beside them.

Earlier this week, Karnes was joined at Frieze New York by Marylin Minter and Jenna Gribbon, two artists in the show, for a panel discussion moderated by curator Alison Gingeras. Karnes spoke of her emphasis on people rarely represented in the art historical canon: Black, Brown, and Indigenous women, as well as elderly women, pregnant women, trans women, and people who reject the gender binary. Citing Linda Nochlin’s famed 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” as her lodestar, Karnes spoke of wanting to “repoint to the idea of greatness.”

The show notably grapples with how the definition of “woman” has expanded, grown elastic, to better serve a diversity of self-representation, an aim that has also been advanced by recent shows of pre-20th-century artists like Artemisia Gentileschi and Berthe Morisot. Does the use of the term “woman” have the potential to exclude participants or viewers? Yes, inevitably, said Karnes. But the curatorial team made an admirable effort to make sure every artist included in the show consented to the definition.

“I told them ‘I’ll be in a show, but I’ll never be the only woman again,” Minter said, reflecting on her early career as the “token female artist” in group exhibitions. She pushed against the notion and counted a victory if the curator conceded to including one more woman.

The Hamptons is a battleground of epic proportions: the world’s rich fight to develop the highly prized land of the East End while planning boards raise infrastructural and environmental concerns, creating bureaucratic stalemates. David Zwirner, owner of the mega-gallery of the same name, has found himself caught in the throes of this very problem as he attempts to set up an artist’s residency next to his home in Montauk.

As documented in the East Hampton Star, the Planning Department has some issues with the project. Zwirner hoped to build some 17 cottages on the shore of Lake Montauk, to be known as the Bridgeford Cottages, that he would offer to artists at a subsidized cost. He is aiming to construct those cottages within the next two years.

As the structures abut Zwirner’s estate, the Planning Department was initially worried about zoning issues. The cottages were to be zoned as commercial space, but if invited artists crossed over into the residential zoning of the Zwirner home, perhaps to use the pool, things could get awfully muddled, at least by zoning standards.

It now seems that the issue is not so much who uses the pool but rather the environmental health of the lake, which already suffers from pollution. The Planning Department would like to see a deteriorating existing bulkhead either completely removed, allowing the natural shoreline to emerge, or rebuilt, so the rotting debris doesn’t continue to filter into the lake.

The Zwirners, it would seem, prefer that it remain in its current, slightly dilapidated condition.

Traveling with your art supplies can be cumbersome and even harrowing—unless you have the right bag to pack them in. If you’re a painter, you probably want separate pouches for your brushes that can keep them secure; you might even want to carry an easel. If you’re a sculptor, you likely have many oddly shaped tools. It’s important to think about organization when browsing for a travel bag, but don’t forget to consider comfort: Is a backpack, messenger bag, or briefcase-style carrier best for your journey? To help you decide, we’ve found five artist-friendly canvas or nylon bags that make commuting a cinch—whether to and from your studio, the classroom, or the great outdoors.

London’s Victoria & Albert Museum has signed an agreement with the French city of Bayeux that will see them work together on scholarship surrounding the Bayeux Tapestry, a 223-foot-long work that ranks among the most important pieces of the Middle Ages.

The deal, first reported by the Times of London, could put the V&A one step closer to reviving a loan agreement for the tapestry itself, which hasn’t left France in more than 950 years. In 2021, that deal was put in jeopardy when a condition report on the Bayeux Tapestry found that it was too fragile to travel. Some read the report as a sign of strained relations between the U.K. and France in a post-Brexit Europe.

Created in the 1070s, the nine-panel embroidery depicts 58 scenes chronicling the 1066 Normandy Conquest of England following the Battle of Hastings. Scholars believe it was commissioned by the Duke of Normandy’s William the Conqueror’s brother Bishop Odo following the political victory.

It is not the first time the V&A has worked with French officials on efforts around the medieval artifact.

The museum’s first director, Henry Cole, helped lead the effort to produce a replica of the tapestry in 1869, negotiating with a Bayeux official to complete the project. The replica was first exhibited in 1873 and later displayed in the Cast Courts at the South Kensington Museum.

Lorenza Böttner gazes confidently and seductively over her left shoulder in a pastel self-portrait from 1989. Her hair is flowing; meanwhile, her naked and muscular body reflects the bands of rainbow light surrounding her. Though the environment lacks a horizon line, the rainbow fades into a deep, dark blue that helps ground the scene. Chalky, dirty footprints are scattered over the gradient, as if the paper had at one point itself been a ground—or more specifically, a dance floor. The portrait is a record of irreverent dancing in more ways than one: Böttner is grooving, and it’s contagious.

If you know anything about Böttner—a Chilean-German artist who was born in 1959, started presenting as female in art school, made many self-portraits, and died in her thirties of AIDS-related complications—you’ll recall that there is no arm at the end of that left shoulder she’s gazing over, nor at the end of her right one. Though it’s right there, in the middle of the five-foot sheet of paper, the nub on her shoulder is far from the first thing a viewer notices in this work. The other striking details include the deft, Degas-esque linework; the immaculate vibe; and Böttner’s skillful handling of color. The rainbow is both campy and delicate, gently refracted by the surfaces of her sculpted figure and windswept hair.

All this the artist pulled off by drawing with her feet and her mouth. Yet rather than depict herself as a freak capable of feats, Böttner appears, in the 20 or so self-portraits on view in “Requiem for the Norm,” her retrospective at the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York, engaged in various banal and tender acts: bottle-feeding a baby or reading a book as she turns the pages with her toes. The self-portraits don’t invite pity or applause, nor do they hide her disability. They are joyful and beautiful, and decidedly not about “overcoming.”

Spanning Böttner’s 16-year career, the show also highlights a few series of photo-based works as well as ephemera from performances, including footage, photographs, and posters. A video of her 1987 performance Venus de Milo, a landmark work of disability culture, shows Böttner covered in a fine layer of white plaster and standing on a platform with a cloth draped over her lower body. For more than 20 minutes, she holds a pose resembling that of the titular armless statue. Before descending the podium and exiting stage left, Böttner asks the audience, in German, “Well, what would you say if the artwork moves of its own accord?” This wry piece retools the politics of staring, calling attention to how impairment can seem downright romantic as a metaphor, or when depicted in art or suggested by ruins, while in daily life, visibly disabled people are often gawked at or shunned.

9 min read

A brief overview of the history of vaccination in Oxford

The remarkable success of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine’s rapid development, testing and rollout presents a moment in time to look briefly back at the history of vaccination in Oxford. Since the pioneering works of Edward Jenner in the 18th century with smallpox vaccination and the social and economic issues that ensued, clear correlations can be seen to those same issues being encountered today with the COVID 19 pandemic.

Many of the issues encountered in the 18th century are currently familiar. They included inoculation resistance, misinformation and conspiracy theories, quarantine and isolation, reporting and surveillance, vaccine passports (a requirement to work) and incentivisation programmes.

Early inoculation

Edward Jenner is well known around the world for his innovative contribution to inoculation and the ultimate eradication of smallpox. Smallpox, the deadliest of all eighteenth-century diseases, was a terrible disease that spread from person to person without discrimination. It was widely feared, killing approximately 30% of those infected. After the initial symptoms of headache, muscle aches, exhaustion and fever, the body would become entirely covered in a rash, including inside the eyes, earning smallpox the epithet ‘Speckled Monster’. Jenner’s work is widely regarded as the foundation of immunology although its origins were in non-white cultures including China, Africa and later Turkey. Many people’s lives were saved from death and horrendous disfigurement thanks to Jenner’s remarkable work and the later developments from his endeavours.

His work started with Sarah Nelmes, a dairy maid, who had become infected with cowpox. On 14 May 1796, Jenner removed matter from pustules on her hand which he then used to inoculate an eight-year-old boy (James Phipps) who then also developed pustules but quickly recovered. On 1 July, Jenner performed the second stage of the experiment by inoculating James with smallpox. His aim was to see if the cowpox vaccine worked. This was long before medical ethics; the risk Jenner took with the boy’s life today seems unacceptable.

Vaccinating Oxford

In 1796 Finmere villagers were among the first to benefit from Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccination and Robert Holt the local rector (among others) became an enthusiastic vaccinator. Holt’s achievements are noteworthy as he was untrained in medicine.  His work is an early example of overcoming inoculation resistance as his parishioners trusted him and there was success in the majority of cases. Holt supplied other clergymen and small village doctors with vaccine and was a leader in dissemination. However, not the most sanitary of procedures were always employed and secondary infections could occur which led, in time, to villagers’ refusals. Holt recognised the experimental nature of the procedure and robustly documented his results; this work earned him considerable praise within the medical profession.

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