Lack of representation in museums today
As most of you know, the statistics on the underrepresentation of women in the arts is truly discouraging and recently, during a visit to the Grand Rapids Arts Museum (GRAM), we were disappointed to find these statistics confirmed.
While viewing their permanent collections showrooms, we were unfortunately confronted with an alarmingly inequitable ratio of men’s art displayed over women’s, counting roughly just 1 to 3 women artists amongst 10+ works by men in each room.
In our quest for change and championing collaboration, we reached out to GRAM in hopes to resolve this disparity. Their response was as follows:
Thank you for sharing your feedback! The Museum is committed to acquiring artwork by women artists and artists of color, and these acquisitions are a key component of our strategic plan. Over the past three years, 80% of artworks purchased by GRAM have been by women artists and artists of color.
Only about 5% of our collection is on view at once, and the galleries are always rotating and changing with new works. Come see us again soon! 😊
Although we appreciate GRAM for taking the time to respond to our initial inquiry, we were left with some follow-up questions for them, such as:
1. Is there anything that can be done to show more women artist’s in the collection on display?
2. Do you have any additional stats? Like the breakdown of the 80%, How much of that 80% are women & women of color?
3. What percentage of the entire permanent collection takes up the art bought in the past 3 years?
No feedback was given to these questions.
We find it disheartening that even with a such a stated effort to collect more art by women, the possibility remains that GRAM (as well as many other curated spaces) are comprised of largely male works and little is being done to publicly change this current lack of representation. If this new art consists of only a small percentage of the entire collection, is visible change happening at all or are these amazing pieces remaining hidden from the world and history?
As of this blog post, the GRAM has not responded to our further inquiries and we are left with more questions than answers, but we hope All SHE Makes can help to bridge this gap cooperatively with them in the future.
