In 1988, anonymous feminist art collective Guerrilla Girls listed the thirteen Advantages of Being a Woman Artist. These included “having an escape from the art world in your 4 freelance jobs,” “seeing your ideas live on in the work of others” and the crowning perk of “working without the pressure of success.” By framing them as positives, the poster drew attention to rampant inequalities – from the pay gap to plagiarism. The piece was a satirical jab at the historically male-dominated art world and is part of the group’s ongoing fight against sexism and racism. Over 30 years ago, how much has changed? The Women Artists Market Report 2024 found that commercial inquiries for women artists on Artsy were only 25% – compared to 71% for male creatives. Overall the gap is still massive, however, there does seem to be hope for the younger generation. When it comes to practitioners born in or after 1997, women account for 51% of inquiries. Galleries and museums play an integral role when it comes to achieving gender parity. Today, the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMΣT) is accelerating change with a ground-breaking exhibition cycle dedicated specifically to artists who identify as female. Previously, only 37% of women artists were represented at the institution. Over the past year, this has risen drastically through the series What If Women Ruled the World? Across four parts, the gallery has been spotlighting ground-breaking creatives, including Magnum Foundation President Susan Meiselas and critically acclaimed Royal Academician Cornelia Parker. We interviewed EMΣT’s artistic director Katerina Gregos to learn more about leading this initiative, the incredible artists who have been part of the project and her hopes for the future.
A: This exhibition cycle takes inspiration from Yael Bartana’s (b. 1970) neon piece, titled What If Women Ruled the World? It’s a thought-provoking hypothetical – what are your reflections on this question?
KG: This exhibition cycle constitutes an unequivocal statement about the need for museums and institutions to showcase and acquire a higher proportion of female artists. Furthermore, and more importantly, the series tests an oft-repeated question: would the world be a better place if women were the key decision makers? How would they “rule”? Would it be with the same sense of authoritarianism that men often deploy? Or would we witness a more equitable sense of government? Would it mean the end of political and armed conflict and deadlock? Would human rights be better? Would economic policy be fairer and more considerate of the environment and the non-human world? Would there be less violence? Or would there be the same obsession with profit, no matter the human and environmental cost, and selfish anthropocentrism? Would there be more discussion and compromise? And, ultimately, would the world be a more caring and compassionate place? Or would we bear witness to the same human flaws, corruption and abuses of power engaged in by those in critical positions? We pose this question not because we are interested in establishing a matriarchy but because we’d like to think about whether there is an alternative to the patriarchal paradigm that is driving the world to impasse and disaster through senseless war, unchecked “development” and ecocide, among other issues. The year-long series of 18 exhibitions requires a leap of the imagination; it aims to make us think about a world where the governing paradigm would come from women, not the current patriarchy.
A: What was your curatorial approach when it comes to putting a series like this together?
KG: I am particularly interested in how museums and visual culture can be transformative agents in education, knowledge production, storytelling and tools for the advocacy of progressive and emancipatory values. The museum focuses on practices that cast a critical eye on society at large and its political urgencies, examining key issues of our times such as democracy, governance, equity, economics, the environment, the effects of globalisation and the dominance of technology, whilst highlighting the importance of public life and dialogue. This is an underlying criterion in many of the temporary exhibitions. In addition, I am also interested in what I call correctional historiography, addressing gaps in history and history of art, stories that have been deliberately omitted or suppressed. Women artists in Greece were systematically marginalised and excluded and it was time high time to boldly change that narrative; also, Greece did not have a feminist movement in the visual arts, which hampered their situation even more. Finally, I am interested in in cultural identity and how this is shaped and constructed, which has also played a key role in the narrative we have explored as we constructed a renewed mission and direction for EMΣT.
A: How did you decide which artists to include in What If Women Ruled the World?
KG: At a time of institutional crisis for arts organisations, EMΣT has carved out its own position, true to the hybrid identity of Greece, which has been shaped both by Eastern or Levantine as well as European and Western influences. Thus, we also look at artists whose work explores the rich historical, cultural, and socio-political narratives of Greece and Southeast Europe, the Mediterranean, which form an important part of the museum’s collection policy; a thread that weaves through the curatorial approach of What If Women Ruled the World? and particularly the collection exhibition Women, Together. The participating artists are women of different ages, backgrounds, as well as some who are no longer living. However, all-in-all, the plurality of their voices aims to reflect intersectional feminism and its acknowledgment of women’s differing experiences and identities depending on race and class.
Despite the progress made by feminist movements or movements such as #MeToo in claiming equal representation and challenging male privilege, women artists and cultural practitioners are still underrepresented in most aspects of the art world. What If Women Ruled the World? aims to radically reimagine what a museum would look like if, instead of a few token pieces, works by women artists were the majority. Especially in a country like Greece, where, as I said, there has never been a prominent feminist arts movement, this is both an important statement and a redressing of a major imbalance.
A: Who are the artists on display in this fourth cycle? And how do they engage with the core question?
KG: Over the course of 2024, What If Women Ruled the World? has presented a total of 18 solo exhibitions, installations and projects, highlighting the work of dozens of women artists. Currently there are 46 practitioners on view as part of the programme, including those featured in the collection exhibition, WOMEN, together. Part IV opened in June 2024 with shows by Bertille Bak, Bouchra Khalili, Tala Madani and Susan Meiselas, as well as presentations of work by Phyllida Barlow and Eleni Pitari-Pangalou, and a new site-specific installation by Eva Stefani. Complementing WOMEN, together, are solo exhibitions of work by Penny Siopis (For Dear Life: A Retrospective); Chryssa Romanos (The Search for Happiness for as Many as Possible); and Danai Anesiadou: (D.POSSESSIONS); as well as solo presentations of work by Yael Bartana, Claudia Comte, Hadassah Emmerich, Lola Flash, and Mary Reid Kelley. By engaging with their own experiences and identities, each of these artists reflect attempts to reverse a history of marginalisation and silencing to open up new perspectives that inspire us all to imagine the world differently.
A: On display is work from the current president of the Magnum Foundation, Susan Meiselas (b. 1948). Could you tell us more about her projects A Room of Their Own and Archives of Abuse?
KG: A member of Magnum Photos since 1976 and current president of the Magnum Foundation, Susan Meiselas has spent nearly five decades documenting global social and political issues. From war and human rights violations to cultural identity and the sex industry, her work raises provocative questions about documentary practice and the relationship between photographer and subject. Her two exhibitions at EMΣT – Archives of Abuse (1991–1992) and A Room of Their Own (2015–2017) – explore the implications of domestic and family violence through a series of photographs, oral and written testimonies, collages, posters and videos.
A Room of Their Own is a multilayered, visual story that explores the lives of women who are survivors of domestic abuse in the Black Country, a post-industrial region in the UK. It was created through a collaborative, participatory process between Meiselas, women living in domestic violence shelters, local artists, writers, and Multistory, a non-profit arts organisation. Archives of Abuse is from the early 1990s, when the photographer was invited to support a public awareness campaign in San Francisco. Accompanying a team of specialised police investigators, she began photographing crime scenes, which are presented with a number of documents with photographs from the archives of the San Francisco Police Department to create a series of collages based on police reports and forensic photographs. These were posted in public spaces to raise awareness of the pervasive structural phenomenon that is violence against women.
A: Now in its fourth and final cycle, what have been some audience responses to the series that have stuck with you?
KG: The response has been overwhelmingly positive and there’s been an incredibly diverse range of visitors of all ages and backgrounds, especially young people. It’s important too to consider the impact of a programme like What If Women Ruled the World? Whilst EMΣT programming will always include women artists, curators and educators, we also hope to inspire others to follow our example. There’s no use doing exhibitions by women artists if, at the same time, you don’t have equal representation of women in positions of responsibility in a museum. By continuing to talk about the issue of gender equality, and not treating it as a fashion or passing fad, we hope we can collectively keep the discussion going and influence future decision making processes by changing the way people think about these issues.
A: Could you tell us more about the collection exhibition, WOMEN, together?
KG: WOMEN, together is the first rehang of the museum’s collection since 2019. By highlighting only work by women artists, the collection exhibition addresses a major issue confronting all museums today: the under-representation of women in collections and the urgency of gender equality. The 24 artists on view include Bertille Bak, Tracey Moffatt, Cornelia Parker and many others. The exhibition also features the first presentation of a number of works from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift to EMΣΤ, the most important and generous donation in the museum’s history, as well as seven new acquisitions and a new long-term loan of a major work by Etel Adnan, courtesy of the Saradar Collection (Paris/Beirut). Many of the artists in the exhibition address a variety of topics related to gender and identity, social and political issues, and the entanglements between them. They mostly share an interest in materiality and the handcrafted, existential or humanistic issues, and the ephemeral nature of all things.
A: What are some of the key themes of the show?
KG: There are several works that incorporate and re-signify objects and materials extracted from the domestic/everyday environment and transform them through meticulous manual sculptural processes. The complexity of human existence and the quest around perennial questions of life and death are evident in several works, as is a preoccupation with entropy, breakdown, decay, and fragility, reflecting the current state of uncertainty. There are enquiries into the body as a site of contestation and the multiple renderings of its meaning in relation to domesticity, work, sexuality and self-representation. Whilst the majority of works are not focused on the female condition per se, there is an underlying preoccupation with questions of equity or oppression and difference.
Finally, there are artists who probe issues regarding history, memory and collective/cultural identities, focusing on the critical geopolitical position of Greece and its immediate geographic surroundings in Southeastern Europe and the former Levant. These are the territories of the former Ottoman Empire, and with them come a multitude of suppressed or marginalised histories that lay dormant in the wake of new nation building. Within the framework of our updated collection policy, we are gradually trying to unpack these narratives. Hence, in the exhibition one will find creatives from Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, France, Armenia, Turkey and of course Greece.
A: What are you curating at the moment? Could you share with us any insights into exhibitions that are on the horizon?
KG: I am working on the upcoming exhibition programme at EMΣT for 2025, which will present a series of exhibitions under the umbrella title Why Look at Animals? This is a project that I have been researching for almost a decade. The exhibition is inspired by the seminal 1980 text of the same name by influential art critic John Berger (1926-2017), which explores the animal-human relationship during modernity and how animals have become marginalised in human societies. Unfolding over the course of the year, the series includes a major new site-specific commission by Emma Talbot (UK), as well as solo exhibitions by Sammy Baloji (DRC) and Janis Rafa (Greece), with a programme that aims to put the moral significance of animals and their physical and emotional integrity at the heart of public debate.
A: What themes will the flagship exhibition explore?
KG: We will present a major international group show of over 40 artists called Why Look at Animals? Reconsidering Our Fellow Travellers. The display seeks to raise the urgent issue of defending non-human life, which is largely ignored or disregarded by politics, business, industry and agriculture, highlighting the highly problematic aspect of our predominant practice of dealing with animals as commodities and products. It aims to engender a discussion around the ethics of how we treat animals, and expose the exploitative and violent mechanisms of systemic animal abuse, shining a light on the shameful and invisible. The exhibition will explore not only the idea of animal rights, but also the question of animal sentience, aiming to start a much needed discussion about the systematic injustices that animals suffer at the hands of humans but also acknowledging animals as not separate from but an integral part of our biosphere and ecosystems. Climate change, pollution, industrial “factory” farming, war, destruction of natural habitats, experiments on animals and neglect of domestic animals all have a dramatic impact on animals and their habitats. In addition, speciesism – our idea that humans are superior to all other living creatures and have greater rights – has justified widespread violence and exploitation in the modern world. However, if we seriously want to engage with climate justice and environmental protection, animals form an integral part of the discussion. At the heart of Why Look at Animals? is the need to question the speciesism that puts humans at the top of the hierarchy of the animal kingdom and in the centre of the world. It is crucial for humans to start looking at animals, not only as something worth defending, but as a vital link to planetary wellbeing as a whole.
National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMΣT), What If Women Ruled the World? | Until 10 November 2024
Words: Diana Bestwish Tetteh and Katerina Gregos
Image Credits:
- Yael Bartana Two Minutes to Midnight, 2021 One channel video and sound installation High definition digital video, colour, with sound Duration: 47’ Video still Courtesy of Capitain Petzel Gallery, Berlin; Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; Galleria Rafaella Cortese, Milan and Petzel Gallery, New York.
- Bouchra Khalili The Magic Lantern , 2020 – 2022 Video installation (film and objects), 24′ Video still Courtesy of the artist an d Mor Charpentier, Paris/Bogota.
- Yael Bartana Two Minutes to Midnight, 2021 One channel video and sound installation High definition digital video, colour, with sound Duration: 47’ Video still Courtesy of Capitain Petzel Gallery, Berlin; Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; Galleria Rafaella Cortese, Milan and Petzel Gallery, New York.
- Yael Bartana Two Minutes to Midnight, 2021 One channel video and sound installation High definition digital video, colour, with sound Duration: 47’ Video still Courtesy of Capitain Petzel Gallery, Berlin; Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam; Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; Galleria Rafaella Cortese, Milan and Petzel Gallery, New York.
