This event was recorded on August 3, 2023 at the Aspen Art Museum, in partnership with Aspen Public Radio.
At the Aspen Art Museum—a conversation between Komal Shah and Sarah Douglas to celebrate Making Their Mark: Art by Women in the Shah Garg Collection, a new publication edited by Mark Godfrey and Katy Siegel.The book, first published this spring, explores the bold vision and vast range of achievements of women artists working predominantly across North America from the late 1960s to the present. The paintings, sculpture and mixed-media works featured are drawn from the Shah Garg Collection, which is dedicated to illuminating the critical role that women have played in shaping the development of abstraction and the narratives of art more broadly. Making Their Mark includes two sweeping essays by editors Mark Godfrey and Katy Siegel, writings by six scholars on topics relevant to the depth of the collection, such as the importance of craft traditions, artistic experimentation with new technologies and the impact of personal and communal identity on artmaking, as well as lively texts by 15 artists about the artists who inspire them. Richly illustrated with works by 136 artists, this volume offers new insights that make it a resource for students of art and general readers alike.Komal Shah is an avid collector and philanthropist whose mission-driven work is focused on advancing scholarship about the significant achievements of women. She has developed an expansive collection that celebrates the work of women artists across two generations. She is responsible for establishing the popular talk series Artists on the Future at Stanford and sits on numerous institutional boards, including SFMOMA, Haas School of Business Berkeley, Stanford Art Council. Making Their Mark: Art by Women in the Shah Garg Collection (2023) was published as part of her ongoing efforts to introduce audiences to the vast contributions of women artists.Sarah Douglas was appointed editor-in-chief of ARTnews in July 2014. She has been an art journalist and editor for numerous publications for 20 years, beginning with four years running the US editorial office of the Art Newspaper, after a stint writing exhibition reviews and previews for the New York Times online. Before ARTnews, she was culture editor at the New York Observer, and she launched a visual art site called Gallerist. Prior to that, she spent six years as a staff writer at Art+Auction magazine and its website, Artinfo.com. Sarah has contributed to the New York Times, New York magazine, the Economist, Flash Art, and the National, among other publications, writing about art, the art market, and the art world.