Balancing the books

The usually breathtaking views from CoUNTess office are currently obstructed by piles of papers. There's post-it notes on every surface and calculators crunching underfoot. But this blog is not about OH&S its about gender representation in the Australian art world and that is a messy business. There has been a mountain of research to get through in our quest to compile the numbers and we are all out of pink and blue highlighters. The CoUNTesses @ blogspot.com have decided that our best plan of action is to sort our excel spread sheets (and sheets and sheets) into bite size chunks. "First things first, but not necessarily in that order" as Dr Who wisely said.

The first chuck: the CoUNTesses @ blogspot.com have reviewed the websites of one mid-sized publicly funded contemporary art gallery from each state, adding up the number of women and men who have exhibited in the gallery's main space from the first show in 2007 to September 2008.  We haven't included any offsite projects and spaces, graduate exhibitions or competitions as they will be the subject of future posts. Plus, in the spirit of first-thing-being first, main gallery spaces host solo and curated group shows and are major milestones in an artists exhibiting career; as all the galleries reviewed accepted proposals for their exhibition programs giving focus to the main stage offers a good gauge of which artists — and more importantly for us, which gender — are making the cut. And no we haven't forgotten the Apple Isle, but unfortunately Cast in Hobart has missed out, as their website is under construction.

The CoUNTesses @ blogspot.com wants to take this opportunity to encourage female artists in Australia to send off those applications for exhibitions to these 'artspaces' we have assessed. We have discovered there is a huge gap in the market that needs urgent redressing and can only assume this is due to a lack of applications by women? Surely, the (almost) blindingly male-centric programming of these galleries can't ALL be pinned on a system-wide valuing of men's art over women's? Surely?With the exception of 24Hr Art in Darwin who exhibited more women then men, the next rating approaching an equal balance was Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne with 60% men and 40% women, and CACSA were the worst offenders with 77% men and 23% women. Jokes about the numbers of women's applications aside, could somebody please explain this gender discrepancy?

The CoUNTesses @ blogspot.com expect only the highest quality work to be exhibited in these galleries, so are rightfully suspicious that it is men as a group who are consistently given exhibition opportunities. If the galleries are programming exhibitions of the highest quality are they declaring that men make better art than women? If not, then why so few women artists? Is it a question of talent and ambition or just plain old fashioned discrimination?  The CoUNTesses suggests these organisation's EEO policies should be seriously reviewed as EEO is an outcome not a procedure.

The Australia Council sets an excellent example and gender equality as institutional policy, awarding individual grants to men and women artists EQUALLY, which proves it can be done without causing a major Taste Crisis.  The CoUNTesses @ blogspot.com thinks these art spaces and all public galleries should be expected to do the same.

Balance the books.

Out for the count

CoUNTess is here and we have been doing some overdue statistical research, confirming what many have been — too quietly — discussing: the systematic gender inequality in the art world. The art world is global, but we thought we would start local, even regional, in the quest to examine the truth behind the serious representational gender inequality that is currently present at every level of the art training-production-marketing-consuming system.

CoUNTess awaits with anticipation Art Express 2009, but in the meantime has been wondering which artists high school students are being exposed to in the class room. We have discovered an initiative by the Kaldor Art Projects, who have produced in partnership with the Curriculum Directorate of the NSW Department of Education and Training, a DVD resource for high school students called MOVE: Video Art in Schools. The aim of the resource is to acquaint and inspire students with the new art form of VIDEO, which is a fine ambition, but...

Can someone at either of these organisations explain to CoUNTess why all the "commissioned" artists in this high school resource are men? Considering that no less than half of visual art students in high school are women, CoUNTess thinks it obvious that such resources would champion gender equality and strongly encourages them to do so.

CoUNTess would be happy to get in on this exclusive Kaldor partnership in the future to fix this glaring problem. I propose that our revised resource be titled MOVE OVER: you don't have to be male to make video art. CoUNTess has a vast network of fabulous women video artists which may assist in its production; we understand the organisers of these kind of resources might have trouble finding many women artists to choose from due to the scarcity of women artists in Australia's commercial galleries and public spaces. Encouraged by us to look beyond these institutions and their testosterone-sodden catalogues, they will find, as we at CoUNTess have (and as many women artists are achingly aware of), that the nation's art schools by comparison are overflowing with women artists.*

CoUNTess also couldn't help but notice that the commissioned artists in the Kaldor resource are all represented by commercial galleries and that these galleries have their own gender inequality issues! That's a lot to think about! Here's the commercial galleries who 'supplied' artists to MOVE Video Art in Schools and their gender spread: Anna Schwartz (23men/15 women), Rosyln Oxley9 (17 men/22 women), Barry Keldoulis (13 men/7 women), Grant Pirrie (10 men/5 women). As we continue to pour over the commercial gallery statistics and their conspicuous alignment with gender inequality in the art world at large, we at CoUNTESS are very much looking forward to weighing in. Why should mens art be worth more than women's?





* These numbers will be crunched in future posts, as we search for the location of the glass ceiling. This discussion will include 'bonus' findings on inequality in the academy, such at the fact that women make-up the majority of art students and the minority of teaching/research staff.