What does female representation look like at the top galleries in the city? Mostly, terrible, according to Pussy Galore’s latest report card. The report follows up on The Guerrilla Girl’s 1986 and several reports made by Brainstormers in the aughts.
Let’s go through the results and do a little comparing:
According to Pussy Galore, Tony Shafrazi ranks the lowest at just five percent, followed by Marlborough at seven. Shafrazi’s number’s actually look better than they did five years ago; he gained a percentage point, whereas Marlborough has fallen from 17 percent women to just 7. Sperone Westwater also has little to no dedication to furthering the role of women artists; in 2010 they represented 12 percent women, and that’s now fallen to nine percent.
There’s not much joy in these numbers, but some pleasure can be found in the few galleries working towards greater parity. Gallery Lelong takes the lead with a whopping 64 percent representation of female artists. Zach Feuer represents 59 percent, Sikkema Jenkins 52 and Jack Shainman 47. Brainstormers didn’t compile the numbers for all these galleries—mostly they focused on the poor performers—but from these reports, we know Shainman has made great leaps over the last five years, as previously he was at only 20 percent representation.
So applause those galleries who are actively working to produce more diverse programming. These are the true leaders in our field. Hat tip: Maura Reilly
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Have you ever been to the website “Stormfront” Paddy? It is a real
hoot. It is a neo-nazi and white supremacist forum with thread after
thread pertaining to how the Jews control everything and this and that.
There are amateur-made charts and tables, stats and figures, just about
everything to make their case that Jews run the world, and more. Now, I
look at a blog post like this, and I can’t help but think of parallels
between this, and the paranoid lunatic fringe armed with tables and
figures such as “Do Jews Control The Media?” which seem to demonstrate
that the CEOs, Presidents, etc. of all major mass communication
corporations are seemingly run by Jewish people. Jews vs. Gentiles
spreadsheet with tally marks which ones have a Jewish majority and which
ones don’t? Total fanaticism. Well, my question for you is, is your
(seemingly) obsession with under-representation of females in the arts a
healthy obsession or an unhealthy obsession? Is it driven out of hatred
for men, a love of women, or a love of equality? Because one can
obviously dismiss the paranoid rantings of the drivel emitted from
Stormfront. Are the claims made here any different? Are they rooted in a
healthy search for justice? What is going on with posts like these?
I have to agree that a metric like this is binary in ways that miss more glaring omissions… I get a very similar feeling watching as Internet companies rally around women in tech while most of the big ones have simultaneously published figures showing close to 50-50 numbers on that alongside figures showing nothing like that spread for ethnicity. I want a more complex report card addressing more issues.
The figure of the artist as alternately socially responsible and fast & loose with research is saddening to me. Without better metrics, progress will always be however whoever feels at a given moment.
But I may only be pissed about that in this moment because I just left an artist talk in which the upper middle class white male artist kept using the word “inquiry” to describe arbitrary decision making on the way to constructing works for the last documenta that ultimately parody lower class ingenuity. Science and research really dont accurately describe the things they’re often brought in as figures to explain in the arts, not because they couldn’t be useful, but because no-one holds artists responsible for rigor
Oh, it’s absolutely a reduction, though in this case I’d argue self consciously so. It is a response to an older piece by the guerrilla girls so that explains the format – but also, this is a small graphic in a much larger body of work. Another commenter on a feminist thread I’m on questioned the inclusion of Yvon Lambert, a gallery that closed last year, and the exclusion of many lower east side galleries. I thought that was useful. To which, someone introduced a massive international spreadsheet they had been using to track gallery representation everywhere. That, I thought was useful. Not because I think the numbers on their own should be a prescriptive action (though in some cases I hope they are), but because it demonstrates in no uncertain terms that patriarchy exists. That, too, seems to be a question for people.
The spreadsheet sounds incredible- is it publicly available?
Let me ask if I can share it. It’s really pretty great but when I saw it, it was open for editing. When that’s the case, you usually don’t want to share the link with absolutely everyone.
I believe it’s a yes to all your questions Karlo. I will not subscribe to a mindset that Jews control the Media because Gentiles have exercise their own will on the masses. But it is worth mentioning that for being so small in population compared to other ethnicities there is much will present.
In reference to your quires regarding the man hating lesbians who seek justice in equality. Given the obvious history of inequality women have and continue to endure in every profession it is worth defending the existence of a report card. I am far more interesting in exhibiting art that is produced by artists with the experience to reflect what is lacking in our society. Not that Jews and Gentiles are not interesting but I would hope you, Karlo, would be at the very least amused by a number of galleries giving voice to the fairer sex. At the very least to inform. I am under the silly impression that these man hating lesbians have something interesting to say. Misandry!!!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/danieldalton/boss-witch#.ehAm4AJMD
Nothing like posting a fairly innocuous piece on a capital-L-liberal notion of inequality and being compared to neo-nazi white-supremacists. SMFH.
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