Comment | Sex and the Disparity: 20 years later, are girls in art really on the rise?

Lazily scrolling through Instagram, I stop when I see sex and the city Charlotte circa 2002 beaming at me. “Welcome to the Museum of Modern Art,” she says in the caption, “Did you know that here at MoMA less than 10% of the work is done by female artists? And even fewer are by women of color? As I try to remember her jagged voice delivering this startling fact, I scroll to the accompanying text for Art Girl Rising, an activist organization fighting for the representation of women in the art world. About the 2002 Charlotte factoid, the text tells me: “That was 20 years ago. TWENTY. The numbers haven’t changed much since then! I find myself staring, lost in worried thought. Have things really not changed in 20 years? Or am I really surprised?

Unfortunately, Charlotte never boldly announced the gender disparity amidst MoMA, in real life, or on TV. Art Girl Rising simply used the familiar pop culture reference to capture the attention of Instagram users like me and point us to a very real and ongoing issue.

Shockingly, the idea that in 2002, 10% of MoMA’s collection was made up of women seems generous when in 2004, when the permanent collection was reorganized (with works covering the period 1879-1969), this number was closer to 5%. 2007 article by Jerry Saltz Where are all the women? for New York The magazine noted that the re-hang exhibited only 20 of 415 works by women in 2004 and 19 of 399 in 2006. Twelve years later, the once abysmal representation of women at MoMA has risen to 23% – or 336 of 1,443 exhibited works. Apparent progress but still a deep divide, one that art historian Maura Reilly has described as “symbolic”. For ART newsReilly described 2019’s massive revamp as both exciting but underwhelming — the central characters continued to be the always white men, with women and artists of color in supporting roles.

That same year, a clean art the report revealed a persistent disparity, despite years of signals of virtue and promises from institutions; he shocked even the conservatives he questioned. The report showed that women made up just 11% of all acquisitions and 14% of exhibits at 26 major US museums between 2009 and 2019. Other reports found that women’s art sells for 50% less than men, and although women represent 15% of the NFT market they represent only 5% of sales. The National Museum of Women in the Arts reports that the collections of the 18 major American museums are 87% male and 85% white, in 2018. Artnet’s Julia Halperin summed it up nicely: “The perception of change was more than the reality.”

Art Girl Rising, who posted the meme, combats the imbalance with information campaigns and their “Where Are The Women Artists” database. The work they and a few other groups are doing to collect and share data is crucial in raising awareness among artists about the disparity we face. While it’s a bit awkward to learn basic art history facts from memes, it might be more subversive than it looks. Thirty-five years ago, the Guerrilla Girls took to the streets with posters and spirit; while the tools have changed, the need continues. The signaling of virtue obscuring the facts by the institutions will not resist the creativity of the artists carrying a message.

Emma Shapiro is an American visual artist and body equality activist based in Valencia, Spain