VICTORIA SIDDALL

DIRECTOR OF FRIEZE FAIRS

‘Like much of Ringgold’s work, the Feminist Series is, to me, a compelling combination – bold and strikingly colourful, but also conveying important messages about race and gender. Ringgold is someone who has extremely strong convictions – she has experienced discrimination herself – but is also warm and funny, and this is how she gets her point across in her art. Her choice of medium here is interesting, too. She creates a lot of quilts and children’s books – media that could be seen as soft or feminine – but uses them to express a hard-hitting idea in a visually arresting way. Ringgold was leading protests about the lack of diversity at the Whitney Museum and campaigning for women’s rights back in the Seventies, and now, in 2019, she has just had a solo show at the Serpentine. She wouldn’t take

no for an answer, and her work is finally getting the acknowledgement and visibility that it deserves.’