Women Artists in Museums: Take a Clue from a National Gallery of Art Show

by Judith H. Dobrzynski  •  Jun 10, 2009 at 5:00 am
Cross-posted from ArtsJournal.com

http://www.judithdobrzynski.com/2009/06/women-artists-in-museums-take-a-clue-from

I don't belong to Facebook, and therefore can't see what Jerry Saltz has been writing about the paucity of women artists at the Museum of Modern Art. I may not even have known about his seething criticism of MoMA's "gender-based apartheid" had it not been for this entry on Doug McLennan's Diacritical blog last week. But back in early May, when I first heard about MoMA's "Modern Women's Project," presumably designed to redress the problem, I thought it was -- frankly -- stupid. According to published reports, MoMA's project involves a series of exhibitions showing work by female artists and a book called "Women Artists in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art." So the way MoMA shows that it is an equal-opportunity exhibitor/collector is to create a ghetto for women artists?

That's certainly not the way I would approach the problem. Morgan Freeman's famous remark calling the idea of a month dedicated to black history "ridiculous" came immediately to my mind: "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history," he said.

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