‘Do women have to be naked to enter the Met Museum?’ A 1989 artwork by the Guerrilla Girls, an all-female-identifying activist artist collective, asked this question. A valid question, as the study goes on to point out, is: “Less than 5% of artists in Modern Art departments are women, but 85% of nudes are women.” When Guerrilla Girls revisited these statistics in 2012, they found little had changed: “Less than 4% of artists in Modern Art departments are women, but 76% of nudes are women.”
So what will happen today? In 2023, Marina Abramović made headlines not for her performance art, but surprisingly for becoming the first female artist to have a solo exhibition in all the main galleries of the Royal Academy of London. The same institution, founded 256 years ago, opens today its first solo exhibition dedicated to a female artist working before the 19th century: Angelica Kauffman.
My guides will also explain the extreme lengths some of these artists had to go to just to produce their work.
While the gender imbalance in museums remains visibly prevalent, improvements are on the horizon. This is thanks to many factors that undoubtedly influence the way museums collect today, from feminist academics who have worked tirelessly for decades to pressure from the public. There are also many people, and for the first time, women, who hold powerful positions in institutions and are conscious about gender representation. Because if an institution continues to evade such progressive measures and continues to glorify the history of patriarchy instead of the history of art, it will become irrelevant and deprive its visitors of great art.
While nothing will happen overnight, it is up to us to take whatever action we can to accelerate the steps towards equality. Building on the important work of museums and museum staff, I created the audio guide project Museums Without Men (MWM), which launches today to coincide with the beginning of Women’s History Month.
MWM spotlights artworks by women and gender-nonconforming artists in collections around the world. The first guides will be published throughout March in partnership with institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Tate Britain and Hepworth Wakefield. Designed for art enthusiasts of all levels, these exhibitions aim to celebrate and highlight important works by names less well-known to some audiences, while also revealing just how far some of these artists had to go just to make their own works.
On the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I look at Rosa Bonheur and her massive painting The Horse Fair, 1852–5. This five-metre-wide painting towers over its neighbors in a room of mostly female nudes by male artists, depicting a highly realistic scene of horses and riders rounding a corner. At the time of its production, the Horse Fair was the largest tableau devoted to the subject of animals (a genre popular with women due to strict rules keeping women out of the living room) and required a Bonheur in a male-dominated event. Asking permission from the French authorities to only wear trousers to avoid being recognized as a woman.
Relating to: You can’t ban embroidery! Why are Arts Council England’s prints a stitch?
At the de Young Museum, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, I will lead viewers into a complimentary room filled with elegant, looped wire sculptures by American artist Ruth Asawa (1926–2012). They are a fascinating sight as they hang in the air. As well as being a great artist, Asawa was also a great educator, having his first UK museum exhibition at Modern Art Oxford in 2022. She paved the way for affordable art education in San Francisco and founded the first public art school in the city in 1982; In 2010, the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts was named in her honor.
Art history traces the history of the world in visual form (mostly) from the perspective of the individual. . My hope is that this is just the beginning of a project that will open people’s eyes to artists they may not know, revealing stories that speak to humanity and show us a different perspective. My aim is for MWM to be active around the world, and while I always encourage people to go to museums, I also want them to look a little further ahead; I want them to seek out the work of women and gender non-conforming artists and then realize how important that is. More work needs to be done. Ultimately, the goal is to show people of all backgrounds, genders and ages that they, too, can be part of this conversation; To people who will perhaps one day see their art hanging on these sacred walls.