Siri Hustvedt on Artemisia Gentileschi, Louise Bourgeois, and more

The Great Women Artists

Katy Hessel

Arts

4.8 • 877 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

THIS WEEK on the GWA Podcast, we interview the acclaimed novelist, essayist and author of 18 books, SIRI HUSTVEDT! From memoir to poetry, non-fiction to fiction, Hustvedt’s writing has touched on the topics of psychoanalysis, philosophy, neuroscience, literature, and art. Long-listed for the Booker Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, Hustvedt’s The Blazing World is a provocative novel about an artist, Harriet Burden, who after years of being ignored attempts to reveal the misogyny in art by asking three male friends to exhibit her work under their name. It is of course a triumph, and other bestsellers include What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Born in Northfield, Minnesota to a Norwegian mother and an American father, and based in NYC since 1978, it wasn’t until 1995 that Hustvedt began writing about art. Since then, her art writing oeuvre has expanded enormously with numerous books and essays published to acclaim – which often focus on the fate of female artists in history, the biases of history making, and discuss the likes of Louise Bourgeois, Alice Neel, Adrian Piper, Lee Krasner, Betye Saar, Joan Mitchell, Dora Maar, among others – which I can’t wait to get into later on in this episode… Hustvedt’s writing is both eye-opening and groundbreaking. She has questioned how we measure greatness, if art has a gender, the effect of art and literature existing in our memory and the future of fiction. She has looked at the masculine traits of the mind and the female traits of emotion, the domestic vs the intellectual, and analysed how historians have not just told the narrative of art, but the narrative of the world. She has asked why absence is so prevalent and explored how women have reconfigured the body after years of what she calls ‘fictive’ spaces… I love her writing and it’s allowed me to unlock elements (and see things differently) in books, art, and more that exist in my memory. Favourite books include A Woman Looking at Men Looking At Women: Essays on Art, Sex and the Mind and, more recently, Mothers, Fathers and Others – which is part memoir, part psychological study. So I couldn’t be more delighted to have her on the podcast today. Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel Sound editing by Mikaela Carmichael Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner Music by Ben Wetherfield https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/ THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY OCULA: https://ocula.com/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome back to the Great Woman Artists podcast. Last week we interviewed Sarah Zee and today we speak to the incredible novelist and essayist Siri Hustvet on a variety of women artists from Artemisia Gentileski to Louise Borgia. Two artists who feature in my book The Story of Art Without Men, which is now out in
0:22.6	Europe and the United States. But before we get into that, I am delighted to say that this series
0:27.6	of the Great Roman Artist podcast is supported by Ocula, a premium gallery platform, magazine and advisory
0:34.5	business. Ocula represents the best of contemporary art.
0:38.6	ocula.com provides collectors, art world professionals and other art enthusiasts with
0:44.2	access to exceptional artwork and compelling articles on artists and the art world.
0:49.7	Exploreocula.com, sign up to their e-newsletter and follow them on Instagram to stay informed on a truly great contemporary art.
1:02.0	Hello everyone and welcome to The Great Women Artist's podcast with me, Katie Hessel.
1:07.0	Some of you might know me from The Great Women Artists, an Instagram account I set up in October
1:12.0	2015 which celebrates female artists on a daily basis ranging from young graduates to old masters.
1:19.3	Well, in a similar fashion to the Instagram, this podcast is all about celebrating female
1:24.5	artists from a variety of backgrounds and histories. And I am so excited to be interviewing artists on their career or artists, writers,
1:32.3	curators or general art lovers on the women artist who means most of them.
1:37.3	What I want this podcast to do is celebrate female artists in all different capacities,
1:42.3	so you, the listener, can gain a look into the greatest
1:45.3	female artists working now or from art history.
1:50.3	I'm so excited to say that my guest on the Great Woman Artist podcast is none other than the
1:55.7	acclaimed novelist, essayist and author of 18 books, Siri Hustvet. From memoir to poetry, nonfiction to fiction,
2:04.2	Hustfet's writing has touched on the topics of psychoanalysts, philosophy, neuroscience, literature,
2:10.2	and art. Long-listed for the Booker Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for
2:15.2	Fiction, Hussfetz The Blazing World is a provocative novel about an artist,
2:19.7	Harriet Burden, who, after years of being ignored,
	...

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