Tracing the Work of Gloria Steinem and Yayoi Kusama
By Wim Langedijk for HURS
Tracing the Work of Gloria Steinem and Yayoi Kusama
HUR Reads is our definitive shortlist of the most prominent articles from around the web.
By HURS Team
1
Gloria Steinem Loved Women
Rebecca Traister reflects on the death of Gloria Steinem, one of the most consequential figures in modern feminism. More than a symbol of the women’s liberation movement, Steinem helped make its ideas legible to mainstream America through wit, charisma and relentless advocacy. Traister also examines the contradictions of her fame, from race to beauty, while honoring the optimism and deep love of women that sustained her work for more than half a century.
THE CUT
Yayoi Kusama’s career traces a striking shift from avant-garde provocation to global phenomenon. Her early work challenged patriarchy, convention and the art market itself; decades later, her polka dots and Infinity Rooms became blockbuster attractions, social-media sensations and luxury collaborations. Looking across her remarkable career, the piece considers what may have been lost along the way, and what happens when once-radical art becomes universally recognizable and immensely profitable.
THE ATLANTIC
Melissa Auf der Maur’s photographs capture the intimacy and disorder of the 1990s rock scene from inside Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins. Drawn from an archive of 15,000 images, the exhibition documents what she calls the “last analogue decade”, a moment of trust, DIY culture and creative freedom before corporate and digital forces reshaped the scene.
ANOTHER MAGAZINE
Sandy Liang reflects on 12 years of building a fashion world rooted in nostalgia, fantasy and her own life. Her new monograph traces the label from scrappy beginnings to viral shoes and collaborations, while motherhood and age reshape what the “Sandy Girl” might become. Through it all, Liang remains less interested in trends than in dressing for the life she wants to inhabit.
SSENSE
Colleen Allen’s gothic womenswear looks to the past to reconsider what femininity might mean now. Turning to Victorian dress after questioning her own relationship with womenswear, she reworks historically restrictive silhouettes into something softer and freer. Drawing on witches, artists and generations of women who resisted convention, Allen has built a distinctive language of femininity: one now earning both celebrity devotees and LVMH Prize recognition.