Monday, March 28, 2011

Female artists only one quarter of artists in 21st Century: Art in the First Decade @ GOMA - How representative is it?

Gender of artists in exhibition 21st Century : Art in the First Decade at GOMA 2011.

Why stop counting? Onto another! A survey-style exhibition this time: Brisbane, GOMA's 21st Century: Art in the First Decade! Sounds important! The GOMA website states:
This summer 2010–11, to mark the end of the first decade of this millennium, the Gallery presents ‘21st Century: Art in the First Decade’. This ambitious and ground-breaking exhibition will occupy the entire Gallery of Modern Art and focus exclusively on works created between 2000 and 2010. It will showcase more than 200 works and feature over 140 artists and artist collaborative groups – senior, mid-career and emerging – from more than 40 countries.
The website provides a list of artists, from which we were able to identify female artists = 28, male artists = 68, and groups = 8. Not much to say here, then. Just the same old same old. We threw a date of birth chart in for good measure.

Date of birth and gender of artists in exhibition 21st Century : Art in the First Decade at GOMA 2011.

Women Artists in 21st Century : Art in the First Decade @ GOMA

| Louise BOURGEOIS (France/United States)
| Candice BREITZ (South Africa)
| Justine COOPER (Australia/United States)
| Angela DE LA CRUZ (Spain/England)
| Nathalie DJURBER1 (Sweden)
| Latifa ECHAKHCH (Morocco/France)
| Tracey EMIN (England)
| Monir Shahroudy FARMANFARMAIAN (Iran)
| Parastou FOROUHAR (Iran)
| Andrea FRASER (United States)
| Sally GABORI (Kaiadilt people, Australia)
| Katharina GROSSE (Germany)
| Fiona HALL (Australia)
| Emily JACIR (Palestine/United States)
| Bharti KHER (India)
| Anastasia KLOSE (Australia)
| Yvonne KOOLMATRIE (Ngarrindjeri people, Australia)
| Susanne KRIEMANN (Germany)
| Yayoi KUSA1A (Japan)
|Gabriella MANGANO & Silvana MANGANO (Australia)
| Almagul MENLIBAYEVA (Kazakhstan)
| Tracey MOFFATT (Australia/United States)
| Rivane NEUENSCHWANDER (Brazil)
| Fiona PARDINGTON (New Zealand)
| Paola PIVI (Italy)
| Jana STERBAK (Czech Republic/Canada)
| Mitra TABRIZIAN (Iran/England)
| Kara WALKER (United States)
| Louise WEAVER (Australia)

13 comments:

wellywood woman said...

I love what you're doing, wish I had the energy to do/help with a parallel project in New Zealand. Thank you.

count.esses(at)gmail.com said...

Thanks - if you ever want to send over some numbers from NZ we would be happy to post them

Anonymous said...

I noticed in many of your charts that include date of birth that women seem to do the best in the over 50 age group - and senior artists - this must be when the revised histories are written? I agree the gatekeepers need to lift their game.

Lock up your daughters!! - don't let them waste their talent and dreams of a career in the sexist art world.

although any girl worth their artist ignores these figures thinking it will be different for me.

Louise Mayhew said...

Great to see some new posts CoUNTess!

Even though the stats are the same old :(

Anonymous said...

One curator at GOMA who has done great work in supporting and promoting Australian women artists is Julie Ewington. Go Julie!

Anonymous said...

come on lets face it arts a mugs game - for every gender - theres no gold in them there hills

Anonymous said...

how about the recent controversy of the 2011 Sulman Prize judge Richard Bell awarding the prize using a dada style random method of selection, not even chance criteria could break the drought for women artists this time round. the prize has't been awarded to a woman artist for over a decade and since it's inception in 1936, has gone to a woman less than ten times! needless to say, the stats are even worse for indigenous artists.

Anonymous said...

I've received a couple of invitations to exhibitions this week that have only a 25% rate of women artist inclusion and I'm wondering if this is the current acceptable norm for curated exhibitions shown in public institutions? The inhouse-curated regional touring exhibition Art#2 organized by ACCA has only one quarter women artists. The second 25% male dominated show this week is called New Psychadelia. It includes "Australian artworks that display psychedelic influences and strategies for addressing the themes of consciousness, capitalism and technology" ... If the great anti-capitalist visual arts revolution is only going to include 1 in 4 women, then I might just stick with the status quo...

Anonymous said...

What about the Kaldor Collection. It's always been perfectly obvious that he has no interest what so ever in women artists but Now that the AGNSW has taken it on I prefer to think of the Kaldor Collection as state sanctioned misogyny.

Anonymous said...

But John Kaldor has commissioned a work by ONE woman artist -Vanessa Beecroft - out of 23 in total, and two women who collaborated with a male artist Charlotte Moorman (with Nam June Paik) and Jeanne Claude who collaborates with Christo, a fact often overlooked.

Plus Vanessa Beecrofts work featured a lot of women!
http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/_webapp_1098359/VANESSA_BEECROFT_1999

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, it was great to see that Kaldor took a short break from the exclusive and strangely homosocial support of contemporary male artists in order to commission some videos with lots of scantily clad women. Very heartening! Do you think he reads her performances as an exploration of prescriptive roles, styles and gestures assigned to women, or is it just a bit of soft porn in between visits to Ugo's studio.

Good point about Jean Claude and Charlotte Moorman. I was thinking about this idea of women collaborators in relation to art hotels in Australia (of all things) which are 100% named after male artists; The Cullen, The Olsen, amonst others and the MONA suites in Tasmania, named after Whitely, Nolan etc, etc. The suite named in honor of the Burley Griffins is named "Walter" not "Walter and Marion." These days historians like to equally acknowledge both the Griffins contribution, but you wont find that kind of progress in the world of Australian contemporary art - it might be bad for business.

Anonymous said...

Be good to visualise the stats for the Kaldor collection at the AGNSW> 3/204 works by women (or if generous 9/204)... keep up the great, if not depressing work!
s

Anonymous said...

Hi
just wondering where the last commentor got thier stats.. would like to write a piece..

So many great comments! readers why not write a post and send it in!