Most art galleries are notorious for their gendered bias as the Guerrilla Girls pointed out in their works of art stating that 5% of artist in the modern art section of the MET are women, but 83% of the nudes are female. This seemed true in the MET, 22 years later, in the areas that focussed on modern art. There were two gallery spaces that had exhibits focussed entirely on women, but were marketed as ‘women in art’ segregating them from the modern art world. They were specialized exhibits to include women, but there were hardly any women included in the ‘non women only’ exhibits, but these artists were separated and left out of the contemporary context of art history.
The MOMA was hardly any better, focussing mostly on male made art, having a large collection of famous works that have been chosen for art history textbooks. While I was enamoured with the Picasso, Giacometti, Pollock, Degas and Mastisse, I noticed a lack of female works in the modern art exhibits. Meret Oppenheim was one (with one work alongside about 7 Joeseph Cornell’s), and recently deceased Louise Bourgeois was another. Like in the MET, there were a couple of exhibits that were solo shows by female artists including the gender neutral works of Lee Bontecou, which had a masculine feel to the three dimensional constructions because of their structure and colour. The room created gender neutrality, having me guessing the gender of the artist; I was actually surprised to learn the artist was female. I often expect art to have that ambiguity, but the gender of the artist almost always influences the appearance of the art.
The Guggenheim was a lot better, having a similar representation of male and female artists. Their exhibits still segregated living female artists with solo exhibitions from the historical context, but their winding exhibition space enmeshed female and male artists quite thoroughly, finally making me feel better about being a female artist in the gendered art world.
The architecture of the space felt different than the other galleries as well. While most galleries are set up into traditional architecture as rooms, and often a map is needed to make sure you don’t miss an exhibit, the Guggenheim was a spiral that wound up the building, with periphery rooms that held specialized exhibits. This efficiency of design separated from the square format of most of today’s architecture which not only attracts patrons but also seems to provide an alternative to the traditional patriarchal architecture. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it is a feminine architecture, the building being one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s final masterpieces, but it separates itself from the traditional architecture of the past (that seems to be mimicked today for ‘classical beauty’) that was designed by the male dominated field of architecture.
Despite the architecture, all of the gallery spaces themselves seemed open to an audience of both genders, art viewing usually being a genderless thing. All galleries catered to art experts and beginners, allowing a wide range of participants, but the spaces were not gender neutral. In the MOMA, two friends of mine on separate occasions were hit on by a security guard in the gallery, a sexual breach of authority that caused them to feel uncomfortable in the space. The guard seemed to take the presence of women to mean that he can try and find a conquest for that night or weekend. This slight incident shows that the masculine dominance exists within even the most gender neutral space and presents its influence over women.
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