FEMINIZING COLLECTIONS? LOOKING AT WOMEN'S PLACES IN ART COLLECTIONS IN TORONTO AND BEYOND

She's My Muse | Joanna Wreakes

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Wall text from Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noir at the AGO this past winter. Photo courtest of Joanna Wreakes.

Recently, the Baltimore Art Museum has made headlines for this announcement - they will only acquire work by women artists in 2020. The decision came following the disappointing results of the survey done by artnet News, which showed only 11% of all acquisitions and 14% of exhibitions at 26 prominent American museums over the past decade were works by female artists. These stats get even worse when we consider intersectionality - African American woman artists made up only 3.3% of the women artists who's works were acquired by these American institutions (source)

Disappointing but not surprising, right?

Accurate depiction of me reading the artnet survey results. Source.

The director of the Baltimore Art Museum, Christopher Bedford, addressed the announcement with this quote: “You don’t purchase one painting by a female artist of color and hang it on the wall next to a painting by Mark Rothko. To rectify centuries of imbalance, you have to do something radical.” On top of this collections decision, the Baltimore Art Museum is also focusing the exhibition programming on women artists and women-centric exhibitions.

Guerrilla Girls’ Do Women Have to be Naked to Get into the Met. Museum? (ca. 1989). Source.

This got me thinking, what are local institutions here in Toronto doing to address this imbalance?

Exhibition view of Femmes Noir at the AGO.
Photo courtesy of Joanna Wreakes.

In the spring of 2019 the AGO announced that they would be deaccessioning and auctioning off 20 works by Group of Seven member A.Y. Jackson. This caused enough of a stir in the public that the CBC actually published an article explaining deaccessioning and some reasons why the practice is carried out by museums and cultural institutions - it’s a great read for anyone who’s not familiar with the practice! The article also quotes curator of Canadian and Indigenous Art, Georgiana Uhlyarik discussing what the AGO would do with the money from auctioning off these pieces - it is designated for the purchase of new works for the Canadian and Indigenous collection. Ideally, these new purchases will reflect a more diverse collection for the AGO with works by women and particularly women of colour, but only time will tell.




I am hopeful that the AGO is on their way to including more women in both their permanent collection and feature exhibitions though. Last year the gallery hosted the first large-scale solo exhibition in Canada by American Artist Mickalene Thomas - Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noirs. Currently, there are two feature exhibitions showing the work of local and international women artists - Hito Steyerl: This is the Future and Sandra Brewster: Blur. Never mind the recent acquisition of “Let’s Survive Forever”, an iconic infinity room by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.

Results of the survery undertaken by artnet News and In Other Words. Source.

Just a few blocks north of the AGO, the Gardiner Museum is also putting a focus on women artists. This month the International Ceramic Art Fair focused on showcasing “outstanding Canadian women-identified artists”. Also currently on display in the museum’s lobby is Kali Spitzer: Sister (in conjunction with Cannupa Hanska Luger: Every One). The two works address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, queer, and trans community members.

What examples have you seen here in Toronto (and beyond!) of feminizing museum collections? What is the next step museum professionals and visitors alike can take to continue to address this inequality in our collections and programming?