Speaker 1: Pushkin, I'm Helen Molesworth and from Pushkin Industries, Something Else
Speaker 1: and Sony Music Entertainment. This is Death of an Artist.
Speaker 1: In our first six episodes, we talked a lot about
Speaker 1: the art world, because there's no way to talk about
Speaker 1: what happened to Anna without also talking about the art world.
Speaker 1: And there's no way to talk about the art world
Speaker 1: without talking about how commercial art galleries and museums have
Speaker 1: a history of what feels like overwhelming racism and sexism.
Speaker 1: But surely now in the twenty first century, things would
Speaker 1: be different, especially in the wake of the Me Too
Speaker 1: and Black Lives Matter movements, when museums began publicly touting
Speaker 1: their dedication to diversity. Right in the art world overall
Speaker 1: believes in progress and believes in itself as a pioneer
Speaker 1: of progress. The consensus and the armal tends to be
Speaker 1: that we are heading in the right direction, and we
Speaker 1: just weren't sure if that was true. We wanted to
Speaker 1: apply some effects to that to see if it were
Speaker 1: in fact the case. This is Charlotte Burns, an arts
Speaker 1: writer turned data minor. She and her colleague Julia Halpron
Speaker 1: wanted to quantify how big the disparities in the art
Speaker 1: world really were and see if those disparities were actually shrinking.
Speaker 1: They started by gathering information from museums about artworks made
Speaker 1: by African American artists. The first data study we did
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen. There was enormous media attention at that
Speaker 1: point looking at the work of Black American artists, and
Speaker 1: I remember one particular headline reading It's a great time
Speaker 1: to be an African American artist. And I just thought
Speaker 1: that was so interesting because this is twenty eighteen, this
Speaker 1: is knee deep in the Trump presidency. It didn't seem
Speaker 1: like a great time overall. And so if the art
Speaker 1: world was so fantastic, how was that the case. If
Speaker 1: that were the case, maybe we could analyze that to
Speaker 1: understand it, and if it weren't the case, perhaps we
Speaker 1: should all stop writing it. Even though many museum websites
Speaker 1: provide information about the works in their collections, no one
Speaker 1: in museums has been doing any data analysis. So Julia
Speaker 1: and Charlotte began asking art museums to voluntarily provide the
Speaker 1: numbers about how many works by African American artists were
Speaker 1: in their collections. Here's Julia. We pitched it to museums.
Speaker 1: As you know, we want to show how progress happens,
Speaker 1: just assuming that there had been progress, and so we
Speaker 1: started by asking around thirty museums in the US, a
Speaker 1: mix of the most attended and then smaller regional and
Speaker 1: university museums, about their acquisitions of work by Black American
Speaker 1: artists and exhibitions of work by Black American artists from
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight until twenty eighteen. So let me
Speaker 1: break some of this down. When Julia and Charlotte talk
Speaker 1: about acquisitions, they are using the word that museum folks
Speaker 1: use to describe the process of how a museum adds
Speaker 1: works to its collection. Before I get into how that works,
Speaker 1: let me just sketch the powermap. There are curators. They
Speaker 1: are experts on art and their job is to know
Speaker 1: the collection and make recommendations about what the collection needs.
Speaker 1: The curator's boss is the director. The director's job is
Speaker 1: to raise funds to keep the museum afloat and to
Speaker 1: set the tone in direction of the organization. The director's
Speaker 1: boss at the very top are the trustees. These folks
Speaker 1: are fiscally responsible for the museum and they make large
Speaker 1: annual donations of cash that support every aspect of the
Speaker 1: museum's function. Okay, so acquisitions happen in two ways. They
Speaker 1: can either be purchased or they can be gifts. Purchases
Speaker 1: have their own extremely complicated set of politics since they
Speaker 1: almost always require fundraising, and fundraising means donors. Then there
Speaker 1: are gifts. Gifts typically come from three kinds of folks, donors, trustees,
Speaker 1: or artists. Now the museum can decide to accept or
Speaker 1: not accept a gift. All of that might sound straightforward enough,
Speaker 1: except that there are serious power dynamics at work. There's
Speaker 1: often a difference between what a curator might want to
Speaker 1: purchase or ask for and what a donor or trustee
Speaker 1: wants to give or provide money to buy. That misalignment
Speaker 1: can happen at every level, between curator and director, between
Speaker 1: the museum's staff and the donors, between the trustees themselves,
Speaker 1: and between the trustees and the curators. All of these
Speaker 1: political vectors are probably grist for a from podcast. Suffices
Speaker 1: to say that museum acquisitions are at the very heart
Speaker 1: of the matter, because what a museum acquires says this
Speaker 1: is worth saving in perpetuity. Anyway, back to Julia and Charlotte,
Speaker 1: who started out looking at acquisitions, all those purchases and
Speaker 1: gifts together. They also looked at exhibitions, both show you
Speaker 1: which artists the museum things are important. We found the
Speaker 1: acquisitions that were being made were about a fifth of
Speaker 1: the population or representation level of African Americans in the US. Yeah,
Speaker 1: two point four percent of all acquisitions against seven point
Speaker 1: six percent of all exhibitions. And that year we looked
Speaker 1: at the thirty American museums, so it was around a
Speaker 1: fifth of what it ought based on the demographics of
Speaker 1: the country. Their data contradicted the myth of the art
Speaker 1: world as being an inclusive and diverse place. So Charlotte
Speaker 1: and Julia decided they needed to expand their investigation to
Speaker 1: look at another underrepresented group. Women. When we started, we thought,
Speaker 1: you know, women are more than half the population. We're
Speaker 1: going to need a database. It's going to be so
Speaker 1: complicated to process all of this information because it's going
Speaker 1: to be so much of it. And it turned out
Speaker 1: Google Sheets was fine because there wasn't very much. The
Speaker 1: title of their report sums up what they found. They
Speaker 1: called it quote Women's Place in the Art World. Why
Speaker 1: recent advancements for female artists are largely an illusion we
Speaker 1: found in that case. Similarly, it was a fifth of
Speaker 1: what it should have been. Demographically, women represented about eleven
Speaker 1: percent of acquisitions at around twenty five US museums. It
Speaker 1: was disheartening to see that the numbers were so low,
Speaker 1: and it was positively gutting for me personally to see
Speaker 1: that they were actually on the decline for almost a
Speaker 1: decade by the time the report came out. Changes discussed
Speaker 1: in these very timid terms, and I remember a big
Speaker 1: museum director saying this to us, we're getting there, we
Speaker 1: are getting I said, well, we're not, because it's stored
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. And they said, you know,
Speaker 1: changes coming. And I just remember saying, but when do
Speaker 1: you think we'll get there to parity, because at this
Speaker 1: rate it's going to take literal eons. And it's not
Speaker 1: like we haven't known about women. It's not some new
Speaker 1: fangled concept like, you know, the people who make up
Speaker 1: more than half the populations. I think it was a
Speaker 1: bit rude of me actually in a way, because I said,
Speaker 1: one did give birth to you, actually, you know, and me,
Speaker 1: and so it's our first concept of humanity was formed
Speaker 1: by the female body. And so they just started laughing.
Speaker 1: Charlotte and Julia are about to release their third report,
Speaker 1: one that looks at an even broader set of data.
Speaker 1: More on that after a quick break to recap arts
Speaker 1: writers Charlotte Burns and Julia Halpern have released two reports,
Speaker 1: one on African American artists and the other on women artists,
Speaker 1: and both showed that these groups were radically underrepresented among
Speaker 1: the museums that provided data. And now Charlotte and Julia
Speaker 1: are about to release their third report. So our data
Speaker 1: set is larger and more comprehensive than it's ever been.
Speaker 1: We're looking at over thirty museums and a much more
Speaker 1: representative swath of the country, so not just clustered on
Speaker 1: the coasts, but looking really at institutions that are across
Speaker 1: the US. And we're looking at updating the program and
Speaker 1: looking at exhibitions and acquisitions of Black American and female
Speaker 1: artists at this group of museums between two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight and the end of twenty twenty. Is the anticipation
Speaker 1: killing you? Do you think the upward tick that so
Speaker 1: many of us have been working for has arrived From
Speaker 1: the initial data that we've gathered, there has been no
Speaker 1: progress I'm going to be honest. When my producer Luisa
Speaker 1: suggested we interview Charlotte and Julia, I didn't have the
Speaker 1: heart to do it. I already knew all these facts,
Speaker 1: both from reading their reports and from well decades of
Speaker 1: working at museums, so I let Luisa interview them herself.
Speaker 1: I knew it would just make me feel that all
Speaker 1: too familiar mix of angry and sad. And it did,
Speaker 1: and it does. Women peak in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: and acquisitions slowly trend downward from there. In terms of
Speaker 1: the share of the overall acquisitions and museums for Black
Speaker 1: American artists, it is a very moderate incline, extremely low
Speaker 1: on the chart. You're talking about to three percent, increasing
Speaker 1: so slightly over the years between twenty eight and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty that it almost locks flat. I remember just looking
Speaker 1: at these spreadsheets and we were both it was like
Speaker 1: a summer tropical rainstorm. It was really oppressive, and we
Speaker 1: both felt very depressed looking at the data, just thinking,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so much worse than we imagined.
Speaker 1: And we were like, oh, you know, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk to museums and everyone's you know, we felt so galvanized,
Speaker 1: we imagined other people would. The reaction, at least among
Speaker 1: much of the art world was not what they'd hoped for.
Speaker 1: And then there was a pretty clear breakdown. This is
Speaker 1: a bit simplistic, but essentially people in power. We would
Speaker 1: take the data to them and it was like their
Speaker 1: brains couldn't quite They had to unscramble it and come
Speaker 1: up with a reason why it wasn't the reality that
Speaker 1: chimed with this. Despite how clear the findings were, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that the museums themselves had provided the data,
Speaker 1: Charlotte and Julia found a lot of resistance. It's amazing
Speaker 1: how quickly the institutions just start finger pointing. You often hear, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not counting all of the African artists
Speaker 1: or other parts of the African diaspora that we're focusing on,
Speaker 1: and so you hear just a lot of discomfort with
Speaker 1: the reality. You know. Part of the reason that we
Speaker 1: did the women's survey after the African American surveys, because
Speaker 1: one of the museum directors said, you know, we've really
Speaker 1: been focusing on women, we haven't really had time to
Speaker 1: pay attention to African American artists. You should look at women,
Speaker 1: And then we did, as we already know, the women's
Speaker 1: numbers weren't any better in comparison to the general public,
Speaker 1: one fifth of what they should be. So what's the
Speaker 1: excuse with women? You'll hear, Oh, well, they're just fewer
Speaker 1: women poor artists, And then you know, we point to
Speaker 1: the graduation rates, and that conversation kind of sputters into silence.
Speaker 1: They actually cited a study that showed that about an
Speaker 1: equal number of men and women graduated from art school
Speaker 1: at Yale since the early nineteen eighties. So the question remains, why,
Speaker 1: if the art world is full of people who imagine
Speaker 1: themselves as progressive and inclusive, why aren't the actual numbers
Speaker 1: bearing that out. To answer that question, it helps to
Speaker 1: look a little closer at where there is some movement.
Speaker 1: Exhibitions tend to show more progress than acquisitions, which I
Speaker 1: think shows the influence of curators, and also that segment
Speaker 1: of how museums interact with their publics can change a
Speaker 1: little bit more quickly. Even exhibitions are planned two to
Speaker 1: three years in advance, whereas acquisitions, which is really the
Speaker 1: long tail of what museums do. It's what will stand
Speaker 1: the test of time that has proven to be so
Speaker 1: much stickier in terms of changing because the people who
Speaker 1: make those decisions, the curators can suggest what museums might
Speaker 1: want to acquire, but the ultimate decision is made by
Speaker 1: the people who told the purse strings, so the board
Speaker 1: and the people who are a bit more entrenched in
Speaker 1: the systems of power. And so that's I think one
Speaker 1: reason why you see change being a lot slower. It's
Speaker 1: important to know the curators have more control over exhibitions,
Speaker 1: and exhibitions cost less money and they are temporary, but
Speaker 1: what goes into the permanent collection via acquisitions has more
Speaker 1: impact because the permanent collection is basically a reflection, consciously
Speaker 1: or unconsciously of what the museum really stands for. So
Speaker 1: in a world where men are still paid more than women,
Speaker 1: a world in which the law of the land favors
Speaker 1: men over women, where the dominant histories are written by
Speaker 1: men about men, and to compound matters, this world we're
Speaker 1: talking about is also a world that continually favors whiteness. Well,
Speaker 1: all of this starts to add up. This is why
Speaker 1: we talk about racism and sexism as being structural and systemic,
Speaker 1: not just being about personal biases held by individuals. Racism
Speaker 1: and sexism are literally built into the very structure of
Speaker 1: how institutions operate. It's all very depressing into spiriting. And
Speaker 1: I say that as a white woman with a lot
Speaker 1: of power in this world, so I have to ask,
Speaker 1: can we find some hope here? Some museums will say
Speaker 1: that point is to their data and say, look, if
Speaker 1: you look at what we're buying, it's a totally different
Speaker 1: picture than our overall picture, because we're really trying to
Speaker 1: buy more diversely and therefore break the data down that way.
Speaker 1: And a lot of that change is dependent upon a
Speaker 1: new generation of women in leadership and increasing demands by
Speaker 1: curators and arts professionals of color. But according to Julia
Speaker 1: and Charlotte, that still doesn't budge the needle because museums
Speaker 1: are given a lot more artwork than they are able
Speaker 1: to buy. So what museums can buy remains quite small
Speaker 1: compared to what they're given. And they've been set up
Speaker 1: that way from the very beginning. They are set up
Speaker 1: to court patrons. Gifts come often from people who are
Speaker 1: on the board, from people who have been involved with
Speaker 1: the museum, from old school patrons essentially, and those old
Speaker 1: school patrons tend to have collected art that reflects in
Speaker 1: the antiquated picture of art history and the picture of
Speaker 1: art history that museums have told for decades. It all
Speaker 1: comes back to structure. The patrons system that museums rely
Speaker 1: on is inhibiting progress. Museums too often bend to the
Speaker 1: taste and desires of their donors, because the donors are
Speaker 1: the folks who pay the salaries. The only thing I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about is this one moment when MoMA reopened
Speaker 1: its new galleries. It was a much more egalitarian look
Speaker 1: at art history. It was trying to tell a really
Speaker 1: different story from the ones that had been told before.
Speaker 1: And I was on a tour with a couple of
Speaker 1: board members and a curator, and one of the board
Speaker 1: members looked at two works. One was by Helma off
Speaker 1: clim To, whose female medium slash artist who's just started
Speaker 1: to get more recognition as an early pioneer in abstraction.
Speaker 1: And the board member said, you know, wouldn't that look
Speaker 1: so much better over there in this other part of
Speaker 1: the room. And the curator said, oh, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that, Like, maybe you will look
Speaker 1: into it. I'm sure the curator had thought about it.
Speaker 1: They've been more on this prehan for over five years.
Speaker 1: But to me, it was just this encapsulation of how
Speaker 1: the patron model works. You know, the patron says something
Speaker 1: and you have to take it really seriously because they
Speaker 1: are the ones putting gas in the tank of the institution.
Speaker 1: Now we're back to the question I've been asking all along,
Speaker 1: can you separate the art from the artist. The findings
Speaker 1: of this new report seem to indicate that we're almost
Speaker 1: incapable of separating the art from the artist. I think
Speaker 1: it's like one of these moot propositions, the idea that
Speaker 1: the artist is ever separate from the art, which just
Speaker 1: doesn't work that way. I mean, as someone who studied
Speaker 1: art history, you learn all about the person and the
Speaker 1: context and the time, and nothing exists in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: And so I think any conversations about what a person
Speaker 1: did or didn't do, if they were a good person,
Speaker 1: you know, whether they paid their taxes, whether they murdered someone,
Speaker 1: all of that is just part of the evolving context
Speaker 1: about history and how we understand value and what we venerate,
Speaker 1: and those things shift, and that's the point of it
Speaker 1: the cannons meant to expand and contract. Often you hear
Speaker 1: people say, well, what if the guy who discovered this
Speaker 1: really important scientific element was a huge sexist in his
Speaker 1: private life. We can't discount this important work that has
Speaker 1: shaped our world and our culture because of who people are.
Speaker 1: My response to that would be, we're not talking about science.
Speaker 1: We're talking about art, and art is informed by who
Speaker 1: you are. It's something that you create based on your
Speaker 1: identity and your worldview and your beliefs, and so it
Speaker 1: seems absurd to separate the two because they were never
Speaker 1: separated in the first place. You know, Picasso was terribly
Speaker 1: abusive to many of the women in his life, and
Speaker 1: he also spent a lot of his career painting images
Speaker 1: of women. So it seems crazy to pretend like those
Speaker 1: two things have nothing to do with each other. It's
Speaker 1: ironic to me that we keep ending up with this question,
Speaker 1: and it seems clear that the institutional insistence on separating
Speaker 1: the art and the artist is a structural problem, one
Speaker 1: that leads to many ills, like still showing Carl Andre's
Speaker 1: work without telling the story of what happened to Anna Mendieta,
Speaker 1: and this incredible lack of diversity in museum collections. I
Speaker 1: feel pretty certain that if we can course correct on
Speaker 1: this front, we will actually help clear the path for change.
Speaker 1: But let's not stop there. Let's connect the museum trustee
Speaker 1: to the museum. Let's connect the past to the present.
Speaker 1: What we're arguing about is now. We're arguing about the
Speaker 1: past in order to discuss the present and ideally shape
Speaker 1: a better future. So of course we might want to
Speaker 1: kill some darlings, create new monuments, and move forwards, because
Speaker 1: that's the point, and every generation overthrows the last to
Speaker 1: some extent, and otherwise you just get buried in nostalgia.
Speaker 1: So let's have conversations about what we want to be
Speaker 1: going forward. There has to be some radical step about
Speaker 1: goal setting, which the art world hates too. But if
Speaker 1: we want to have better representation, and we're here right now,
Speaker 1: then can we at least have a serious conversation about
Speaker 1: what that might require on the whole the art world,
Speaker 1: in addition to being this amazing place filled with art
Speaker 1: and ideas, is also a place suffused with power and money,
Speaker 1: and hence it is very resistant to change. In order
Speaker 1: for progress to happen, the trustees, the folks impositions of
Speaker 1: power need to recognize the reality of these glaring disparities
Speaker 1: that Julia and Charlotte's data have made so painfully clear.
Speaker 1: They also have to understand their active role in creating
Speaker 1: and maintaining these power relations, because the truth is, if
Speaker 1: we don't change the power dynamics and museums, these numbers
Speaker 1: will basically stay the same. Death of an Artist is
Speaker 1: a co production between Pushkin Industries, Something Else and Sony
Speaker 1: Music Entertainment, Written and hosted by me Helen Mouldsworth. Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Lizzie Jacobs, Tom Kanegg, lital Malade, Jacob Weisberg
Speaker 1: and Lucas Werner. Produced by Maria Luisa Tucker, editing by
Speaker 1: Lizzie Jacobs. Our managing producer is Jacob Smith. Associate producers
Speaker 1: are Pooge Rue and Eloise Linton, Engineered by Sam Baar.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Pooge Rue. The