***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 07:12:13 -0800
   [From]: Britta Erickson <britta2@leland.Stanford.EDU>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Marginalization of women

Hello!

I would like to insert a remark that falls somewhere in between what Pable
Helguera and Chris Drew have said.  Among the various permutations of the
censorship discussion, we have seen examples of instances when cultural
institutions have been very well-intentioned, but have ignored groups of
artists along racial/cultural lines.  I have been organizing an exhibition
that is about the history of exhibitions of female Chinese artists.  I find
that while the male artists are having great success both in terms of
making the cut for the major exhibitions, and in terms of selling well, the
female artists have been quite marginalized.  There are plenty of examples
of "Chinese art" exhibitions in Europe and the U.S. that include dozens of
men and one or two or zero women.  To me it is clear that the women's art
is of equal quality.  I have been looking into the educational
opportunities in China, and find that the academies do admit more men than
women, but the male/female ratio is not so unbalanced as is the ratio
represented by the exhibitions.  In between education and the museum
circuit, something happens.  So far as I can tell, the problem is that all
the big collectors are men.  They are also to a large extent the same
people who hand over money to museums, so their taste dominates.
Obviously, this is not deliberate censorship:  it is an example of power
politics.  It is the accidental, but pervasive, marginalization of an
aesthetic and a very significant segment of society.

Does anyone on the list know of prominent female collectors, and know if
the content of their collections is reasonably balanced in terms of the
ratio of male to female artists?  I am wondering to what extent this is a
culturally determined phenomenon.  (What I mean is, perhaps collection in
areas with which I am unfamiliar are not so skewed in favor of male
artists.)

--Britta

Britta Erickson, PhD
66 Peter Coutts Circle
Stanford, CA  94305
U.S.A.

britta2@leland.Stanford.edu
FAX/Phone:  (650) 857-1007

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/art/china/