Emily McDermott

Berlin

Writer and Editor at Freelance

Writer & Editor. @artbasel, @artreview_, @wallpapermag, @frieze_magazine etc. Former @Fulbrightprgrm fellow & @interviewmag editor. she/her

Articles

11 Iconic Design Works That Art Collectors Love

3 weeks ago | artsy.net | Emily McDermott

Furniture, decor, and signs of life are what make a house a home. In particular, design works, when paired with art and tasteful, understated furnishings, can transform a room into a personalized statement on art and taste. Art lovers, from artists, to collectors, to designers, often select iconic design works to make an impact in their space. For those interested in delving into the world of design objects, here are 11 of the most iconic pieces.
15 Iconic Feminist Works by American Women Artists

4 weeks ago | artnews.com | Emily McDermott

From the first wave of feminism in the 1840s to second-wave feminism and the Feminist art movement of the 1960s and ’70s through the intersectional feminism of today, these 15 artworks by American women stand out for the lasting impact they’ve had on art history. Read more of our Women’s History Month coverage here.
Johanna Hedva Confronts the Inevitability of Sickness and Doom

1 month ago | artnews.com | Emily McDermott

No matter how it arrives, disability will arrive for everyone, sooner or later,” Johanna Hedva writes in How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom, an essay collection published this past fall.
Break the Binary: On Women, Art and Computing

Jan 24, 2025 | artreview.com | Emily McDermott

By choosing to focus only on female pioneers in art and technology, Radical Software at Mudam Luxembourg misses the bigger pictureOne of the first works encountered in Radical Software is Hanne Darboven’s notational drawing series Ein Jahrhundert-ABC (1970–71).
Dragon Hill X ArtReview Writers Residency: Emily McDermott

Nov 18, 2024 | artreview.com | Emily McDermott

The fourth Dragon Hill X ArtReview Writers Residency text takes the seeming ubiquity of the colour pink (if in fact it is a colour) in the South of France as the departure point for a discussion of its ever-shifting qualities and interpretationsFrom the moment I arrived in the South of France – or, really, while still on the inbound flight – pink permeated my sense of being.
Back and forth in time: the Art Week Tokyo video programme

Oct 31, 2024 | theartnewspaper.com | Emily McDermott

When it came to selecting the video works for this year’s dedicated programme of screenings at Art Week Tokyo, the guest curator Sohrab Mohebbi looked for emerging themes and patterns. What he noticed was the recurrence of ideas concerning overlapping and disjointed temporalities.
Selma Selman Mines Scrap Metal From Her Romani Family's Body Shop

Sep 30, 2024 | artnews.com | Emily McDermott

“When people ask what I do with my art practice—am I a painter? a performance artist?—the best explanation is that I’m a transformer,” Selma Selman said when asked to describe her work. Indeed, the 33-year-old’s practice spans painting, performance, installation, and film, but central to everything is the act of transformation: of materials, social constructs, cultural signifiers, and, most often, combinations thereof.
The Uncontainable Mire Lee

Sep 26, 2024 | artreview.com | Emily McDermott

The Korean artist’s haunting, lo-fi kinetic sculptures offer new spins on sensing and thinking, and perhaps new ways of beingAs instructed by a sign, I lift a piece of resin-coated burlap attached to a black metal frame.
How Noah Davis Pioneered a New Vision of Black Representation

Sep 17, 2024 | artsy.net | Emily McDermott

“The practice [of painting] has a history so vast and forgotten it can only exist in the land of the spirits,” American artist Noah Davis once said. Throughout his career, Davis strived to reframe the representation of Black people through an incredible painterly blend of the real and the magical, through inserting their presence among the dreamlike qualities of daily life.
Lynn Hershman Leeson Is Watching You

Aug 15, 2024 | frieze.com | Emily McDermott

As I approach a pedestal, a mysterious voice says: ‘You think you’re so clever. I see you.’ Atop the plinth is a wax cast of the artist Lynn Hershman Leeson’s face, replete with a glass eye and synthetic hair. This whispering work, Paranoid (1968–2022), from the series ‘Breathing Machines’ (1965–2022), establishes the visitor as both astute observer and voyeur.