A Feminine Affair
Focus on female artists
“Want to get rich buying art? Invest in women.” - New York Times
It might seem as if the gap between male and female artists is closing; however, when one looks at the statistics, in museums and significant art institutions the work of women consists of only 15 to 30% of the total exhibited work. The imbalance is systemic, it exists not only in the collections of publicly funded institutions, but is perpetuated by commercial galleries; indeed the money-driven art market is an obstacle to gender parity. As a society, the art we consider to be the most valuable in monetary terms is largely by men; if major institutions only buy and exhibit blockbuster artists, their female counterparts don’t stand a chance. Last year in an open letter published in French by Libération a group of artists and art professionals spoke out against gender disparity at Rencontres d’Arles, the annual photography festival held in the south of France, “A major contributor to this issue is the lack of awareness and commitment from curators institutions and festival managers, who continue to leave women in the margins,” the letter read. “It is time for real action. And that action is simply to exhibit women artists. Women do not want exceptions—they want a fair, equal share to level the playing field.”
“In the 19th century, a lady was told not to excel too much at one thing … I only excel at a few things. I don’t cook, I don’t drive, and I find that quite common now. I work very hard to only do a few things. What matters is my relationship with the canvas and how I’m going to deal with it that day.” -Cecily Brown
In a powerful move, at this year’s Art Paris, women artists took centre stage. The initiative was that of non-profit organisation AWARE: Archives of Women Artists Research and Exhibitions. The aim of the organisation is the creation, indexation and distribution of information on women artists of the 20th century. It was co-founded in 2014 by Camille Morineau, director of contemporary French art space La Monnaie de Paris, following the success of “elles@centrepompidou”, an exhibition dedicated solely to the work of women artists in the collection of France’s Musée national d’art moderne. It brought together more than 350 works by some 150 women artists of the 20th and 21st centuries; it was the first time such an influential art institution had shown so many women artists. In preparing for the show Morineau realised how much these artists - even those recognized as a driving force in the avant-garde - had been underestimated by art historians, and how much more there was left to learn about them. “There was a lot even I didn't know, although I am an expert in 20th century art,” says Morineau, “I thought to myself, that is scandalous.” Of course every exhibition has its detractors, and writing for the Guardian in 2010 Germaine Greer said of the elles@centrepompidou, “The effect of offering a sampler of the work of 200 women is to diminish the achievement of all of them. By lumping the major with the minor, and by showing only minor works of major figures, [it] managed to convince too many visitors to the exhibition that there was such a thing as women's art and that women artists were going nowhere.”
Louise Bourgeois, Toi et Moi (2006) Screenprint in black and red, on woven fabric Photograph: ©Phillips
Interestingly, there is a French history of parity; La Monnaie’s first director, philosopher and mathematician Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794), was an early proponent of gender equality. Indeed a contradictory aspect of the French is that they can be reactionary, but also revolutionary. For her part, Morineau believes in the revolutionary power of data; and how information published online can change mentalities, representations and finally, history’s narrative: “There is a huge lack of visibility on women artists in art history, so the current ‘canon’ is not right.” As recently as the early twentieth century, women were often unable to study, exhibit or earn patronage, and major institutions have typically failed to support the careers women artists working at the margins. AWARE highlights those women who were determined to be artists. Some, like Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) and Cindy Sherman (b. 1954) have become household names; of course it took 50 years for Delaunay to be recognised not just as the wife of Robert Delaunay, but as an artist in her own right, who helped found France’s Orphism art movement. Similarily, French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, who helped galvanize the feminist art movement of the 1970s, was 96 by the time a retrospective of her work work was shown at the Centre Georges-Pompidou in 1995.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled (Madonna) (1975/1997) Silver gelatin print Photograph: ©Phillips
In “A Gaze at Women Artists in France” AWARE selected 25 international artists from the post-war period to the modern day. “Galleries that weren't invited by us have also chosen to show women artists, so we have a very feminine and feminist fair and the rediscovery of women artists goes beyond our simple choice of names,” says Morineau of Art Paris 2019. “The 25 artists open up four points of view – abstraction, feminism, a focus on the ‘image’ (photographic and video) and the abstract notion of ‘theatricality’ – from a vast part of art history that tends to be forgotten: one created by the female gender.”
Though the aim of AWARE is to highlight the works of women artists from around the world, the focus of their Art Paris exhibition is on a French scene whose female representatives have been under-represented in almost every major institutional event that has presented an overview of art in France. Seemingly, since the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir, France, as a whole, has taken a step back; only very recently has there been any real focus on gender studies, and at large the French context is “essentialist” or “universalist”, the idea that an all women show risks “ghettoising” rather than “celebrating” their work; thus moving them away from justice and equality. “I’m very aware of that point of view,” says Morineau, “and I don’t care.”
The history of art was written by men, about men; through AWARE, Morineau hopes to readdress the balance, writing the work of 20th-century women into art history. With shifting political landscapes, the 21st century paints a brighter picture of progress, but the gender gap still remains. Women artists account for just 4% of the National Gallery of Scotland’s collection; 20% of the Whitworth Manchester’s and 35% of Tate Modern’s collections. Only 33% of the artists representing Britain at the Venice Biennale over the past decade have been women.
Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin (1998) Cast bronze with patina Photograph: ©Phillips
The audience is ready, and eventually, the market will follow; Morineau sees signs of progress in the growing interest of art collectors, museum directors, and the broader public in women artists, in particular, the younger generation, which is far more concerned with issues of gender parity. In the UK Maria Balshaw was appointed first female director of Tate Galleries and Frances Morris, director of Tate Modern, has been consistently vocal in championing women artists. Over the past few years Morris has been responsible for the ever-growing number of solo female shows at Tate Modern including Anni Albers, Joan Jonas and Marlene Dumas.
“My advice to women in the arts today is that it is a changed world. But it really is still a case of pushing and pushing and making opportunities and never being complacent.” - Frances Morris, Director of Tate Modern
In the public sphere, Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery, has staged more solo shows by women than men, including Terrains of the Body; which involved the work of 17 women photographers from five continents, taken from the collection of the National Museum for Women in the Arts, in Washington DC; the only major institution in the world dedicated to championing the work of women in the arts. As artist and professor Joan Semmel put it: “There are many great women artists. And we shouldn’t still be talking about why there are no great women artists. If there are no great celebrated women artists, that's because the powers that be have not been celebrating them, but not because they are not there.”