POLITICS OF EQUALITY BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN IN THE ART WORLD: DESIGNING STRATEGIES
III International Contemporary Art Experts Forum. ARCO'05.
Director/Moderator:
Xabier Arakistain. Independent curator. Bilbao, Spain.
Thursday 10. The Charismatic Ideology of Art, a Sexist Logic.
Participants:
Lourdes Méndez, Professor in Art Anthropology, Euskalherriko Unibersitatea (EHU/UPV), San Sebastian, Spain.
Amelia Valcárcel, Vice-President of the Board of Trustees, Prado Museum and Chair in Moral and Political Philosophy, University of Oviedo, Spain.
Friday 11. Politics of Equality between Men and Women in the Art World: Designing Strategies I. Participants:
Frida Kahlo, Writer and founding member of the Guerrilla Girls. New York City, USA.
Soledad Murillo, Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales. Madrid, Spain.
Linda Nochlin, Feminist Art Historian and Art Critic. University of New York, Institute of Fine Arts. Nueva York, USA.
María Ruido, Artist. Madrid, Spain.
Friday 11. Politics of Equality between Men and Women in the Art World: Designing Strategies II.
Participants:
Ute Meta Bauer, Institute for Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. Vienna, Austria.
Françoise Duroux, Chair in Philosophy and Professor, University of Paris VIII. France.
Patricia Mayayo, Professor, Universidad Europea de Madrid. Spain.
Carmen Navarrete, Artist and Professor, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Spain.
Annika Strömberg, DG Culture, European Union. Brussels, Belgium.
After a decade, the 1990s, during which feminist attitudes have, with greater or lesser success, hovered over the conceptual frameworks of artists and the different establishments that produce and/or disseminate art, we are beginning to hear a generalised murmur of dissent from different sectors aiming to discredit feminist ideas and equality-seeking vindications, labelling them démodé, obsolete. This incredible reaction is perhaps the product of a tendency to transform social vindications into phenomena related to fashion trends and the like… But still, the situation of collective discrimination against woman and other marginalised collectives on the social scene in general, and the art world in particular, remains intact. Consequently, there is a need to develop other kinds of strategies to amend it.
In Spain, art is produced and managed largely with public funds; in spite of this, there is still only token participation by women in national and international programmes and events receiving such funds. To cite an example at a major museum, the Reina Sofía National Art Centre programmed 28 solo shows in 2004, and only four of them were by women artists. Looking elsewhere, it is truly striking that in the three most recent major shows promoted by different national and local administrations presenting the art of today here in Spain, when viewed in numerical terms, revealed a scandalous exclusion of women artists. The two exhibitions that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sponsored to represent Spain at the 2003 Venice Biennale did not include a single woman . Gaur, Hemen, Orain , a 2002 show at the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts which aimed to present the new Basque art scene, featured 20 artists, but only five were women. At Manifesta 5, the European Contemporary Art Biennial, whose latest edition was developed in San Sebastian, Spain, and which aimed to show the most interesting art created over the past two years, women artists did not represent more than 20% of the total. The exception that proved the rule is The Real Royal Trip , a show sponsored by Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote today’s Spanish art abroad for New York’s MoMA 2 and PS1, which had 40% women artists. However, this figure contrasts with that of the programming which has been carried out since 2002 by the SEACEX (State Corporation for Cultural Action Abroad), an agency of the Foreign Ministry: of 43 solo shows, only two were by women.
Despite this situation of extreme neglect of women artists in the art worlds, the public administrations have been developing a variety of equal-opportunity policies for women in such areas as labour and politics. These general policies, recommendations, and so on are on the agendas of national governments and international organisations such as the European Union and the United Nations, and often include the use of gender quotas as a regulating mechanism. Concerned about this blindness regarding gender inequality, the EU, since the 1990s, has been calling for its members states to incorporate transversal gender positioning in all of their policies. However, the art scene has remained aloof to these social policies—as if it were not itself part of the social order.
For all of the above, the aim of these panel debates is to present and analyse different actions and programmes which are being carried out in a variety of political contexts. Why aren’t equality policies being applied in the art field? Is it useful, necessary, and beneficial to propose the establishment of gender quotas in the art worlds, which would be regulated by the public and private administrations? What other alternative or complementary measures can or should be put into practice in order to regulate the status quo of inequality?
A clear-eyed analysis of the situation and the measures needed to overcome it will be the focal point of these three panel discussions which we are presenting at this edition of ARCO.
Xabier Arakistain, Independent curator.
