#modersohn-becker

#modersohn-becker

The most remarkable aspect of the Royal Academy's newly opened monographic exhibition on Michaelina Wautier is its rediscovery of a talent on a par with the likes of Van Dyck and Rubens.

The Mirror uses erotic cinema as a narrative tool to explore something rarely addressed in this genre: the emotional aftermath of a breakup, where desire, memory, and fantasy intertwine as Roberto tries to understand what has happened to his relationship.

Laura Berger continues her explorations of communion in a suite of staggering paintings that place her signature minimal figures in intimate fellowship with one another and the earth.

Claude Chabrol, the celebrated co-founder of the French New Wave, stated, 'Because men are living, and women are surviving. Cinema is about surviving.' This profound insight influenced Petzold's approach to storytelling.

The nineteenth-century Italian aristocrat Virginia Oldoini, Countess de Castiglione, has been cast in many lights: narcissist, courtesan, spy, exhibitionist. In the photo studio of Mayer & Pierson, she played all these parts and one more-the role of self-portraitist. For decades, Oldoini helped conceptualize and starred in more than four hundred portraits so experimental and expressive that they have drawn comparisons to works by Claude Cahun and Cindy Sherman.

Entering Tracey Emin's retrospective A Second Life at Tate Modern evokes the unsettling sensation of reading someone's personal diary, as her entire body of work reflects intimate experiences.

Pornceptual challenges mainstream perceptions of pornography, reframing it as inclusive, artistic, intimate, and respectful rather than exploitative or taboo. Its events, from Berlin to international stages, bring a sex-positive, body-inclusive ethos to nightlife. Strict consent practices, no-photo policies, and spaces designed for authentic self-expression create a rare kind of freedom - one that allows visitors to explore identity, desire, and intimacy without judgment.

The body becomes a site of transformation. Uniquely crafted pieces engage with the wearer, blurring the line between material, form, and presence. Each one-off creation and streetwear capsule emerges from a conscious, boundary-free creative process, drawing inspiration from visual arts, theatre, music, dance, and the surrounding world.

Inspired by her brother's tragic suicide, the album transforms pain into a powerful musical narrative, breaking the silence surrounding suicide and offering a refuge for remembrance and healing.

Bendetta's latest single, "Headshot," captures the moment when something shifts: when violent thoughts arise, yet the urge to maintain control prevails. This track navigates themes of anger, boundaries, and the conscious decision to no longer absorb harm without letting it transform you into the one inflicting it. Rather than offering comfort or resolution, "Headshot" demands clarity: it focuses on naming feelings, standing firm within them, and refusing to downplay their significance.

The organicity of the human body we're born inside of is encoded in us. This concept of our organic nature as the source of elemental knowledge, at once direct and mysterious, permeates the textural abstractions exhibited in her survey Magdalena Abakanowicz: The Thread of Existence at Musée Bourdelle.

In 2024, art collector Christian Levett opened Europe's first museum dedicated to women artists in a little town in the south of France. But for those of us who can't make the trip to the Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum, or FAMM), the American Federation of the Arts (AFA) has arranged the next best thing: a blockbuster touring exhibition about women artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement, featuring some of the highlights of the FAMM collection.

I don't know what you want to know, says Anne Imhof, three-quarters of the way into our interview. Her cautious smile, between curtains of jet black hair, changes into a sceptical pout. I have just quoted a headline at Imhof, one of Germany's most important contemporary artists, that described her 2025 New York show as a bad Balenciaga ad.

If you want to paint, put your clothes back on! That was how Carolee Schneemann summarised the critical response to her 1975 performance piece Interior Scroll, which she had performed nude standing on a gallery table. After making a series of life model poses, she removed a scroll from her vagina and began to read her manifesto. In doing so, Schneemann asked an important question: What does it mean for a female artist to be both the artist and the life model?

Monia Ben Hamouda's work weaves calligraphy, material transformation and ancestral memory into sculptures and installations that oscillate between language and form. In conversation, we traced the conceptual and sensory threads of her practice, unfolding through key works that reflect on heritage, embodiment and translation. Using materials such as iron, stone and pigment, her installations become sites where history is not only referenced but physically felt.