Guerrilla Girls at the Whitechapel Gallery this Autumn

Come October there will be a new artwork in the Whitechapel Gallery in London which expands on the statement created by the Guerrilla Girls - "It's even worse in Europe" - within the original 1986/7 collection of posters.

The contention at the time was that nobody needed any explanation about what was worse in Europe given the main topic of Guerrilla Girl activity!

The 1986 Guerrilla Girls Public Service Message "It's Even Worse in Europe"

The Whitechapel Gallery has commissioned the Guerrilla Girls to create a new artwork as part of an archive display at the Gallery. Following their 1986 poster which states "It’s Even Worse in Europe", the new work will present the results of fresh research based on questionnaires sent to over 400 European museum directors in 2016, including the Whitechapel Gallery.

This is the Guerrilla Girls response

“With this project, we wanted to pose the question ‘Are museums today presenting a diverse history of contemporary art or the history of money and power?’ Our research into this will be presented at Whitechapel Gallery this fall.”

Exhibition:  Guerrilla Girls: Is it even worse in Europe? 

• Venue: Pat Matthews Gallery (Gallery 4) in the Whitechapel Gallery, 77 – 82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX
• Dates: 1st October 2016 and continue until 5th March 2017.
• Admission: Free.

The exhibition will:

• address relating to the representation of artists in recent exhibitions who are female, gender nonconforming or from Africa, Asia, South Asia and South America. 
• present new statistics on the state of museums and galleries in Europe.
• include a broad range of research and production materials which throw light on how the group works. The Guerrilla Girls will give a special public presentation at the Whitechapel Gallery about their 31 years of activist work on 1 October.

In addition there are other events

At the Whitechapel Gallery

• Artist Talk: Guerrilla Girls on Saturday 1st October, 3pm | £9.50/£7.50 conc - The Guerrilla Girls will present a lecture illustrating their work over the past 31 years, and the work that still needs to be done.
• Curator's Tour on Thursday 8th December, 6.30pm | Free - Co-curator Nayia Yiakoumaki leads a guided tour exploring the Guerrilla Girls’ exhibition.

At Tate Modern

• The Guerrilla Girls will also lead a week-long major public project at Tate Modern (4-9 Oct.), as part of Tate Exchange (which opens at the end of September).

Who are the Guerrilla Girls?

They've gone from being the conscience of the art world to cultural icons.

The famous 1989 Poster which the Public Art Fund refused to use on a billboard in New York
and was subsequently banned from NYC buses as being too suggestive

Interestingly Guerrilla Girl posters are now included in the collections of the
New York Public Library and the Museum of Modern Art, among other institutions.

We’re feminist masked avengers in the tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Wonder Woman and Batman.

and

We undermine the idea of a mainstream narrative by revealing the understory, the subtext, the overlooked, and the downright unfair.

and

The Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous, feminist activists was founded in 1985. Each member takes the name of a dead woman artist as a pseudonym and in public their identities are hidden under gorilla masks. Using facts, humour and fake fur, they produce posters, banners, stickers, billboards, projections and other public projects that expose sexism, racism and corruption in art, film, politics and the culture at large.

The idea of the Gorilla masks was that it always keeps the focus off the individuals involved and on the messages they want to promote.

Gender imbalance: Are women artists under-represented in art?

This is a round-up of and commentary on surveys about women artists and gender imbalance in art around the world.

Regular readers will know that I've regularly commented on this blog about the representation of women in artists selected for art competitions, exhibitions in galleries and on the committees running art societies and museums etc. Indeed I have been known to comment also on the "get on and do" approach of a number of societies run by women!

Part of a very effective graphic for the admirable "Countess Report "
- published on a regular basis in Australia. The latest (2016) report draws on 2014 data.

This post started from one recently published survey report in the UK - and then grew and became international!

Representation of Women Artists in the UK

Earlier this year a research report on the Representation of Women Artists in the UK was published. I've summarised its conclusions below.

• The report was commissioned by the Freelands Foundation and the author of the report was Charlotte Bonham-Carter. 
• The report addresses the question "Are female artists under-represented in Britain?"  and seems to have started from the presumption that they are not.

often people think that equality has already been achieved in the arts due to the fact that things have indeed improved. Inspirational figures such as Tracey Emin, who have defied the statistics, exist in the public arena – but the truth is that women are still severely under-represented in the art world.

I don't know if the link to the report I've highlighted above is the complete report or a related presentation. (Does anybody know?)

Context - previous reports

I'm providing the hyperlinks to the resources it built on as these are either missing in the document itself or the links don't work in the online version.

if only we could!

It built on The Great East London Art Audit - conducted by the East London branch of the Fawcett Society in 2013.

• Unfortunately somebody forgot to renew the domain name for the website chosen to publish this report. As a result that links now send you to an Indonesian property company! (Note: Never ever place an online report on a new website unless you intend to maintain the existence of that site - including domain name payments!)
• See this summary of their findings in this Guardian article The London art audit: how well are female artists represented? - whch provides access to download the data spreadsheet
• See this article in the Huffington Post - The London Art Audit: How Well are Female Artists Represented?

This report Cultural Value and Inequality: A Critical Literature Review written by Dr. Dave O’Brien & Prof. Kate Oakley is also cited as an influence. It was commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Cultural Value Project

Inequality has become essential to understanding contemporary British society and is at the forefront of media, political and practice discussions of the future of the arts in the UK

Representation of Women Artists in the UK Conclusions

In summary, the conclusions of the the Representation of Women Artists in the UK report (in the document I've read) are that:

• female art and design graduates outnumber men
• men outnumber women in activities relating to a relevant career for an art graduate eg solo exhibition at a large gallery
• representation of female artists has increased over the years. An audit of female representation at non-commercial artists showed that 42% of shows were by female artists in 2014/15 compared to 31% in 2012/13
• representation of female artists drops outside London (down to 33%)
• gender imbalances persist at and beyond the mid-career stage

So - bottom line. It's very clear that there's a gender gap - but we already knew that didn't we?

My concerns are that the report essentially 

• Fails to rather than formulate and test a hypothesis in statistically robust manner. Consequently it does not demonstrate that its conclusions are statistically valid (speaking as one who crunched data for a good part of her career! See NOTE at the end of this post re. some of my statistical concerns)
• Fails to test other dimensions which ALSO contribute to levels of progression and 
• Describes rather than analyses statistics collected - e.g it does not look for any patterns of correlation with any other relevant factors

For example, many women who choose to combine having a career with motherhood often pursue very different career patterns over the life of their career due to a desire to provide stability for children when they are young.  It's a matter of choice for some - not the dominance of a male sub-culture in the "Art". Not everybody wants to hand over their children to childminders - some are happier to allow a career to take more of a backseat role for a period of time - with a view to pursuing career development and achieving career 'markers' (e.g. get selected for the Venice Biennale; get short-listed for and/or win the Turner Prize) at a later date.

At the same time very few artists (of any gender) are ever going to achieve the 'top level' achievements. The top artists come out of a big pool of those who don't quite make it to the top.
The bigger that pool is, the more women artists will eventually make it to the top - so long as there is fair-dealing and appropriate processes to support career development.

Of much more concern - and I would argue of much more relevance to the expenditure of research funds - is the ability to

• identify those factors that make the biggest difference to how most artists progress their careers - and become part of "the pool" and then climb out of it.
• ensure that the data framework and sampling frame and methodology are statistically valid i.e. if you're going to count do it in the right way.
• identify and track relevant data on a regular and consistent basis - e.g. by ONE project. (See The Countess Report below for a more methodologically sound basis for collecting and analysing relevant data)

The scope and breadth of relevant context

I'd have thought a more thorough-going review would have looked at a wider context e.g.

• the extent to which ALL art graduates (i.e. analysed by gender) remained in full time art-related activity - thus creating a gender-related baseline for measuring engagement and progression
• whether studies of gender imbalance in relation to other vocational degrees (eg medicine and the law) and/or other areas of creative professional activity (drama/music etc) also contribute to understanding better how 'being a woman' impacts on career progression. 

I suspect there are a fair few longitudinal studies out there for other areas where the progress of women in career fields continues to be an area of concern.

See for example the following articles highlighting the even worse gender imbalance at music festivals.

• Only one female headliner: New study reveals gender imbalance at British summer music festivals | The Independent - All-male bands made up 43 per cent of this summer's acts, while all-female bands made up just 3.5
• Music Festivals Have A Glaring Woman Problem. Here's Why - | Huffington Post - this concludes that the issue lies with the male-dominated sub-cultures which actually run the business side of music and music festivals.

Half of music festival attendees are women. But on stage, the numbers tell a different story.

• Where are all the women headlining music festivals? | The Telegraph - which did a survey of all the artists and bands! (see chart below)

from : Where are all the women headlining music festivals? | The Telegraph 08.08.14

Plus here's an interesting observation from one female musician commenting to The Telegraph - suggesting that it's not unusual for those sitting within one area of the arts to not look to closely at what's going on in another area!

"When it comes to mindfully representing women with the right message, music is out of date in comparison to art and literature.

How do gender differences in art vary around the world?

Another consideration is whether the progression of female artists is the same around the world - or whether it varies from place to place. Study of such factors says a lot more about the influence of general culture and attitudes to and support for the progression of women.

For example if we look to the southern hemisphere....

London Portraits by Carl Randall

Carl Randall's London Portraits - on display at the National Portrait Gallery

When Carl Randall won the BP Travel Award in 2012, he produced an exhibition of portraits of the people of Japan at the National Portrait Gallery the following year which demonstrates a cross-section of old and new Japanese society and placed all the people in the context of both traditional and contemporary Japanese places.  

'In The Footsteps of Hiroshige: The Tokaido Highway and Portraits of Modern Japan' proved to be very striking and memorable and you can see the images and read my thoughts on his paintings in my review Carl Randall's Japan - the best BP Travel Award Exhibition ever!

Now he's back at the National Portrait Gallery in 2016 with a new series of portraits - this time of London and featuring places in London.

London Portraits

His most recent project is called ‘London Portraits’.  This is a series of 15 portraits of people who have contributed to British culture and society.  His Japanese influenced style makes for a very different sort of portraits and they're very striking.

He met all the participants in person and asked each of them to choose a place in London which was meaningful to them for the background of their portraits.

A documentary video ‘London Portraits’ has been made which shows the making of the paintings and sitters explaining their choice of location.  Do watch it - it's really interesting about process and sitters.

LONDON PORTRAITS - CARL RANDALL from Carl Randall on Vimeo.

Documentary about Carl Randall's 'London Portraits' 

11:06mins. © Hawkeye Productions 2016.

The participants

Jon Snow - presenter of the Channel 4 Evening News
in the Channel 4 studios

© Carl Randall

• Newscaster Jon Snow - who as usual has a very luminous tie for newscasting!  (I sketched Jon Snow once in the Restaurant at the top of the National Portrait Gallery.) 
• Comedienne Jo Brand - outside the Comedy Store in Oxendon Street

Comedienne Jo Brand
outside the Comedy Store
© Carl Randall

• Animator Nick Park - (of Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep fame) in the Dinosaur Gallery
• Illustrator Raymond Briggs - outside 65 Ashen Grove where he was born and brought up
• Novelist David Mitchell - in St Paul's Cathedral

Novelist David Mitchell
in the Whispering Gallery in St the dome of St Paul's Cathedral
© Carl Randall

• Actress Katie Leung - outside The Shed on the Southbank
• Poet Benjamin Zephaniah - in Epping Forest
• Illustrator Dave McKean in front of St Giles Church
• Movie producer Jeremy Thomas - outside Bar Italia
• Film-maker Julian Temple - outside Temple Station
• Poet Simon Armitage - outside the Royal Festival Hall
• Dancer Akram Khan - in a skate park
• Zoologist Desmond Morris - at London Zoo
• Actor Antony Sher and Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company Greg Doran - at the Noel Coward Theatre
• Actress Julie Walters - across the River Thames from the concrete monolith known as the National Theatre

Julie Walters
with the National Theatre in the background
© Carl Randall

The portraits are available as prints from the National Portrait Gallery. You'll find a display of them in the basement next to the cafe.

Display of the London Portraits as prints next to the NPG cafe

Links:

• Website: http://www.carlrandall.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carlrandallpainter
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlrandallartist
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CarlRandallArt

Review: Society of Women Artists Annual Exhibition 2016

The 155th annual exhibition of the Society of Women Artists has a lot to recommend it. The exhibition opened last week at the Mall galleries and continues until 7th August.

A very well hung exhibition 
The end wall in the Main Gallery exemplifies how to hang large and/or dark artworks
without having an adverse impact on other artwork in the exhibition.

You can see images of artwork in the exhibition in the two online exhibition galleries:

• Members Gallery 2016
• Non-members Gallery 2016

This eclectic exhibition displays huge diversity in terms of topics, media and type of artwork. There's a very good mix of media on display and a range of different types of artwork - in terms of drawings, paintings, fine art prints and sculpture. As in other art societies exhibiting at the Mall Galleries, the work of the printmakers is impressive.  The sculpture and 3D artworks are also extremely varied both in terms of subject matter, media and concept behind it.

The exhibition is also well hung - with the Main Gallery being particularly impressive.  I also appreciated the way that walls were hung with a view to the whole. It lent coherence and unity to the whole. I was reminded of very good shop windows where a colour theme unites the objects even if they are very dissimilar in character. Given the diversity of artwork within this exhibition, this is no small achievement.

I went to see the exhibition on Monday and below you can find out:

• what I learned about what has been done differently this year to improve the standards of artwork on display - which you can read about below.
• who won which award. I've listed this year's prizewinners towards the end. Top prize is £2,000.
• artists whose work caught my eye are listed at the end.

The North Galleries

What's different in the SWA Annual Exhibition 2016?

Last year I was very pleased to see that the Society of Women Artists seemed to be making a concerted effort to 'raise their game'.

This year they have continued to make changes and below you can see a list of the main differences - which are significant and includes ones which other art societies might be well advised to adopt also!

How not to run an online art competition

This morning I experienced an emphatic learning lesson in how NOT to run an art competition online.

An online art competition which prevents you voting

If you run an online art competition there are usually two objectives:

• marketing your brand
• getting engagement with your brand and website/blog

However in relation to this competition:

• First votes are only valid via Facebook. This completely ignores the fact that there are still lots of artists who won't use Facebook. This means the host runs the risk of annoying all those clients or customers who are not Facebook fans. To my mind this runs completely counter to the notion that this might be a marketing exercise for the brand! Any online competition must have a method of voting which is open to all online!
• Next the organisers says it doesn't seem to work with Chrome on iOS or Android accounts. So the competition appears to eliminate: 
• the most popular browser in the world 
• all mobile devices - which are now very much the device of choice for browsing and the most likely method most people will come across this competition and want to vote!
• I've just discovered that not all entries will allow votes when using Firefox. After taking trouble of moving from Chrome to Firefox and logging into Facebook all over again on my Apple iMac! I got the error message "User opted out of platform: The action attempted is disallowed, because the user has opted out of Facebook platform."
• Either that or there's a distinct possibility that this competition doesn't work on Apple platforms at all. Which is just silly! That's when I started writing this post!

"What is the point if you can't use 3/4 of the device that people use?" - comment on Facebook

The competition in question is Jackson's Art Supplies The Art of Reflection Competition.

This is last Friday's blog post announcing the shortlist and inviting votes

I want to emphasise that I really like Jackson's Art Supplies Blog - it's usually excellent and I often share content on the blog. They generally have a very good online presence and this is very much an exception to general performance. However Jackson's really do need to find a better way of running online art competitions fast!

So do go and admire the artists who took the trouble to enter and were fortunate to get selected.

But I wouldn't bother trying to vote in this competition!

What works better for votes

If you ever think about running a competition it's essential that you have

• identified and checked out in advance a method which works for everybody on all platforms 
• eliminating popular platforms is not an option - you need to find one which works across all platforms
• working via the Chrome browser and Apple operating systems and all mobile devices is a basic!
• a way of preventing multiple votes from the same internet account - experience shows that artists and their families are not above voting for themselves multiple times!

For Polls and Votes I always use Polldaddy. I've found it very reliable and used it in different contexts.

There are other alternatives available. If you have one you favour please leave a comment below.

Reasons why I like Polldaddy for Polls

• The major advantage is that the Poll is based on their website. This means:
• you can embed the Poll on a wide range of platforms for example I've embedded Polldaddy polls on my Blogger blog and Weebly websites
• I can also link to it directly on my Facebook and Twitter account, in emails etc and people then vote via the website
• You get to choose the level of feedback you give to voters after they have voted. People can also see the votes or the percentages voting for different options if you choose - or the results to date can be hidden if you want to keep votes secret until you announce the results
• You can determine precisely when the vote closes
• It works on Apple mobile devices (using anything which does otherwise is limiting the votes cast!). Plus it now has an iPhone/iPad app.
• You can upload media to each voting option - which means it works for image-based competitions. (Obviously for an art competition this might mean hosting a larger image on another site - however for voting you only need a prompt that you're voting for the right image)
• You can also restrict access by blocking repeat voters by IP address or cookie or both.

I hasten to add that I have no relationship with Polldaddy - I just like their software. It works and causes me no hassle!