Inside Ursula Issue 11
By Randy Kennedy
Our upcoming issue of Ursula is devoted to its namesake, Ursula Hauser, one of the great art patrons and collectors of her generation, who turned eighty-five this year. Of her many decades in the art world, she once said, with considerable self-deprecation: “I’m not a professional … but I think I don’t have a bad eye for artists.” Her eye, in fact, has been prophetic, not least because she began to befriend, and collect the work of, visionary women artists at a time when the art world was just beginning to undergo a transformation (still very much a work in progress) from its centuries-long default of male domination.
The cover is a detail of a striking new painting by Amy Sherald, whose work, soon to be the subject of surveys in San Francisco and New York, is written about with deep historical insight by the curator Rujeko Hockley. In her essay, Hockley looks at the liberation of Sherald as an artist and the unconstrained Black world rendered in her paintings.
Issue 11 is a testament to the more open and adventurous art world that Ursula Hauser has helped create, with feature articles by and about the work of Phyllida Barlow, Roni Horn, Aki Sasamoto, Uman and Zoe Leonard. Also in the issue are pieces by Rei Kawakubo, Steve Martin, Simon Wu and much more.
As a selected preview for our readers, we are pleased to publish an article from the issue in advance of its release: A conversation about Zoe Leonard, whose recent in-depth body of work on the United States-Mexico border and its political and cultural valence is now on view at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.
Stay tuned for our Amy Sherald cover story and more from Issue 11 on November 2.
—Randy Kennedy, Editor in Chief
Amy Sherald, Untitled (Opal), 2019. Oil on linen, 54 x 43 x 2.5 in. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde
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Ursula Issue 11 (Fall/Winter 2024) is now available for pre-order or subscription from Hauser & Wirth Publishers.