Rebecca Horn

Horn became a key figure in a moment for art that challenged and changed formal ideas. The author, Jeanette Winterson, has described Horn as performing a role akin to an artist-inventor or alchemist, and as possessing a capacity to produce artworks that rouse powerful elemental forces and emotions.

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Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas is a prolific artist, who has greatly influenced the generation of performance artists to follow. She developed her own particularly fluid language and style of working, and furthermore revolutionized the practice by incorporating video and single circuit video loops into her work.

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Nancy Graves

Her work stands for an important moment in modern art when the dominant Pop Art trend was challenged, and instead audiences were encouraged to think about natural history, the world around us, and our modern data-based understanding of it. Graves was ahead of her time in her understanding of the importance of democratic data, she has influenced many artists living in the current digital age, such as the map-inspired artist Julie Mehretu, and Frank Stella, Judy Pfaff, Jessica Stockholder, and Sarah Sze.

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Niki De Saint Phalle

The Nouveau Realisme movement, and Niki de Saint Phalle’s work in particular, had a significant effect on the development of conceptual art. Her works often combined performance and plastic art in new ways, blending and dismantling hierarchies between painting, sculpture, and performance in a way that would influence conceptual artists.

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VALIE EXPORT

EXPORT was a pioneer of engagements with intermedia and this has been influential on subsequent generations of new media practitioners, particularly in relation to Feminism.

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Helen Levitt

In both her photographs as well as her films, Levitt created objects of fascination drawn from the seemingly mundane reality of everyday life. Transforming scenes and subjects into performances that flirted with the surreal, the intimate moments captured in her work spoke to the wonders of the human condition.

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Bano Qudsia

Pakistani novelist, playwright and spiritualist Bano Qudsia wrote novels, dramas plays and short stories in Urdu and wrote for television and stage inUrdu and Punjabi languages. She is best recognized for her novel Raja Gidh and her critically acclaimed play Aadhi Baat.

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Witarina Te Miriarangi Harris

At the time of her death, Witarina Harris was described by politician Tariana Turia as a ‘cherished kuia of Ngāti Whakaue o Te Arawa waka; darling of the silver screen; and one of Aotearoa’s original movie stars’.

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Shirley Temple

Most Americans know Shirley Temple as the adorable child actor with curly hair who graced movie screens from 1935 to 1938. After enjoying a successful career as an entertainer, Temple dedicated herself to public service, working as a politician and ambassador.

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