by Izilda Jorge
The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) sells a shirt that reads “Men Have Made A Lot of Bad Art”. This statement isn’t positing that men haven’t made significant contributions to the arts. Rather, it presents a critique on male work in the same lens that men traditionally viewed women’s art, which was often intentionally reductive and minimizing. We are supposed to scrutinize this statement, ultimately to scrutinize the issues with artworld. Art is a broad category, but I will focus primarily on the visual arts.
It should come as no surprise that there’s an overt monotony in the artists exhibited in reputable museums. Most of which are white, most are men. Floor after floor, stocked with pieces from every movement, all sourced by white male artists. Where are all the women? The people of color? We know they existed, since they are the subject matter of most of these paintings (you know, the ones who are always nude). While women are depicted as the subject matter, very few play the role of artist. Take the case of prominent white women artists, Mary Cassatt and Artemisia Gentileschi. If they did it, why couldn’t others do it?
Judith Slaying Holofernes, Oil on Canvas, circa 1614-20. Artemisia Gentileschi (see left)
There were institutional barriers baked in the foundation of artworld, a foundation sourced by these white men to prevent other groups from gaining entry. Art institutions and apprenticing-painter studios would chastise women who showed interest in studying art. These institutions argued that women can’t receive technical training (this book here goes more in depth about this phenomenon spanning 16th-19th centuries) because they cannot be exposed to the morally compromising male nude form. And without proper training, women could never possess the same technical skill their male contemporaries have. In the case of Cassat and Gentileschi, women of remarkable skill, how did they beat the odds?
Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, Oil on Canvas, 1878. Mary Cassatt (see right)
The fact is, any women artist we see in a museum today was able to elude barriers of the past through meeting at least one of two conditions. They were able to pursue art because 1) they came from a family of wealth, or 2) have a social ties to someone of status in artworld. Gentileschi was the daughter of an established Italian painter, meeting conditions 1 and 2. Cassatt studied with Edgar Dégas, who is regarded as a key figure in Impressionism, meeting condition 2. These women were successful because they had men who facilitated their success; they were provided opportunity to just barely squeeze past the barriers of artworld. Most of the time about 5% of artworks on major museum walls in the U.S., like the MOMA, are works of women artists. This isn’t to say that women lacked the talent or ‘genius’ to make substantive art worthy of museum space. It’s indicative of the institutional flaws of artworld. These barriers still exist.
Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, Oil on Canvas, 1638-9, Artemisia Gentileschi (see left)
And while one might argue that museums are indicative of the past, contemporary women artists still have issues getting into this exclusive artworld. According to the Art Newspaper, 27% of solo exhibitions went to women artists out of the 590 exhibitions between 70 institutions. One might reason that there aren’t many women studying art in the contemporary world. Yet, 65-75% of students in MFA programs are women, and that 51% of working visual artists today are women. There isn’t a lack of women artists. The issue is that most of these institutions are still rooted in principles and beliefs that fail to successfully incorporate their women demographic into the mainstream. These statistics confirm that women are still at a disadvantage in artworld.
Artworld is an amalgamation of ‘traditional’ male standards and methods of critique that pervade the way in which we as a modern society collectively perceive art. These traditional standards inhibit those other than the white male. We need to scrutinize those that monitor the artworld, the people who reinforce tradition at the cost of innovation. Do not ask, “why are there no women artists?”. Ask instead, “what is holding these women back?”