Disclaimer: Wir, die Mitarbeiter*innen des Kunstmuseum Bochum, sind ein internationales Team und gestalten unsere Kommunikation dementsprechend so offen wie möglich. Deshalb haben wir uns für die englische Sprache entschieden für unsere Weeknotes. Übersetzungen sind in deutscher Sprache auf unserem Website-Blog hier verfügbar.
We at the Kunstmuseum Bochum are an international team and want to keep our cooperations international as well and as open as possible. Therefore, we decided to write our weeknotes in English. German translations are available on our website-blog, right here.
Week 12
Welcome to our latest weeknote. With the international women’s day being only weeks away from today, we have been discussing women and their role in the arts and art institutions last week. With an eye on our collection, Özlem, our research trainee, delved deeper into the question.
It’s not the men we’re lacking. A view of our collection in storage - © H.Holtgreve, 2022
1. Status Quo: There is a clear gender imbalance in the arts
Viewing the permanent collection of art museums, we are faced with a huge issue: a clear gender imbalance. The majority of the artworks shown are made by men. Even though there are many paintings and sculptures depicting women, there are not many artworks shown that were created by women themselves. Throughout history, women have been regarded as the muse of male artists and were depicted in different scenes. These depictions are often problematic and can’t be seen as good representation. They way women are shown is through the male gaze: nudity, Eurocentric body standards, and sexualization even in the most macabre contexts are just the tip of the iceberg.
2. Where are the women artists?
This overall imbalance in the art world, ends up in a lack of representation of female artists in museums’ permanent collections. And it is without question the case in our museum as well. So, we cannot help, but wonder: Where are the women artists? Were there any at all? Our exhibition “Inventur” which unveils the complete collection of sculptures in Kunstmuseum Bochum, is the starting point for our research.
3. The numbers don’t lie
The sculpture collection of the Kunstmuseum Bochum consists of approximately 300 artworks. Going through the collection for the first time, we had already presumed that we would be faced with more male than female artists. However, the actual number we discovered was very alarming. Out of the estimated 300 artists, there are only 9 artists we could identify as female.
4. We have to adress this issue
These numbers only speak for our sculpture collection. It remains to be seen how it looks in the other disciplines, such as graphics, paintings, and photography. As a museum which is developing towards a more diverse direction, we have to question this particular issue related to gender as well. These changes can’t happen overnight and are related to financial boundaries, but we can’t postpone them any further. As we can’t just replace our entire collection, we have to find ways to tackle this issue with the means we have at hand. What we can do and are doing already, is rethinking the presentation of our collection and give contemporary womxn artists and curators a platform in our changing exhibitions. Only if we have an understanding of our past and are familiar with the intentions and motives of that time, can we develop differently in the future.
Thank you for taking the time to read us, see you soon!
- ÖA
About us:
The Kunstmuseum Bochum is a small art museum in Bochum, Germany, rethinking its collection.
Through these Weeknotes we want to document insights and share thoughts about our ongoing inventory process at the Kunstmuseum Bochum. We call it “process”, not “project” on purpose because beyond a need of order, our collection needs a re-telling of its stories, in all its iterations. For more information, you can contact us at: cnies@bochum.de or if you’re reading this for the first time, join our Substack for regular updates.