The website where the Dutch umbrella organisation of museums, the Museum Association, de data on audience and number of employed members tracks, was unreachable today. Perhaps that is because today the leading website Artnet also came out with revealing figures on the arts sector in the US. In the report, titled The Burns Halperin Report, includes a survey on the number of female and Black artists involved in acquisitions and exhibitions in US museums.
The figures are staggering for those who thought art in particular would be neatly representative by now. Although women make up just over 50 per cent of the world's population, and almost half the number of art school graduates are also women, only 11 per cent of purchases and 14 per cent of exhibitions in the US in recent years were devoted to the work of female artists. In art auctions, only 3.3 per cent of sales featured a female artist. This invariably includes recent work by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Georgia O'Keeffe and Frida Kahlo.
Colour missing
Within the group of women artists, the number of women of colour is also underrepresented. They accounted for 0.5 per cent of museum acquisitions, while they constitute 6.6 per cent of the population. Black artists (m/f/x) are underrepresented anyway. While 8 per cent of artists in the US are Black, they made up only 2 per cent of purchases and 6 per cent of exhibitions in recent years.
Artnet notes that, again, these are mostly contemporary artists, and although the numbers are rising slightly, it is hardly noticeable.
Now, of course, it becomes interesting to see if the Netherlands differs greatly from the US in this. You would think so, but as recently as 2019, Mama Cash in an investigation that only 13.4 per cent of exhibiting artists in Dutch museums were women. A non-representative survey of temporary exhibitions and galleries found that more women were involved in that sector (against 35%).
No figures were known about people of colour then (and now).
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