Dear artist/curator/critic/audience
This is an open letter directed to the director Dr Thomas Köhler at the Berlinische Galerie about the statistics of female v/s male representation of the temporary exhibitions there. (In short: In total 34 male artists have been represented with solo-shows in-between 2007 and 2013, and only 11 female artists (24%). As for the group shows, Berlinische Galerie has shown in total 268 male artists and 94 female artists (26%) during the same time.)
The open letter needs to be signed by as many engaged persons as possible before we send the text to Monopol or Frieze d/e who we hope will publish the letter, and if they don't we will post the letter on the Berlinishe Galerie facebook-site and as many other places we can think of. Please read the letter and consider to sign it. If so, please send your name to Power Ekroth
powerekroth@gmail.com or hannah goldstein
hannah@hannahgoldstein.net as soon as possible. If you feel that the letter is important: please pass this letter on so that we can get as many signatures as possible before February 7th when we will send it to the magazines. It will still be possible to sign the letter after February 7th.
All best /power and hannah
OPEN LETTER TO DR. THOMAS KÖHLER, DIRECTOR OF BERLINISCHE GALERIE
Dear Dr. Thomas Köhler,
During a seminar at the Nordic Embassies in Berlin the other week, you were asked about the ratio of female artists v/s male artists in the collection and the temporary exhibitions at the Berlinische Galerie for which you are the director of. You mentioned that you didn't know exactly the percentages of female artists represented by your institution, but that you were positive that the result was going to be a good one if you did the math. We know how difficult it is to review one's own work through the gender-perspective glasses, especially when one doesn't have the correct statistics presented in black and white. We wanted to help you out, and hence we did the math for the exhibitions over the past years at the Berlinische Galerie from what we could find from your official website. The result is below with the essential information highlighted.
2013:
Solo shows in total: 8 (25% female artists represented in solo shows)
Female artist: 2
Male artist: 6
Group shows in total: 3 (16% female artists represented in the group shows)
1st show included 16 artists: 3 women 13 men (1 unknown NSH Architekten)
2nd show included 30 artists: 4 women 26 men
3rd show included 12 artists: 2 women 10 men
2012
Solo shows in total: 3 (0% female artists represented in solo shows)
Female artist: 0
Male artist: 3
Group shows in total: 3 (22% female artists represented in the group shows)
1st show included 33 artists: 7 women 26 men
2nd show included 5 artists: 3 women 2 men
3rdshow included 25 artists: 4 women 21 men
2011
Solo shows in total: 9 (22% female artists represented in solo shows)
Female artist: 2
Male artist: 7
Group shows in total: 1 (25% female artists represented in the group shows)
1st show included 16 artists: 4 women 12 men
2010
Solo shows in total: 7 (57% female artists represented in solo shows)
Female artists: 4
Male artists: 3
Group shows in total: 2 (24% female artists represented in the group shows)
1st show included 53 artists: 13 women 40 men
2nd show included 2 artists: 0 women 2 men
One group show with missing information of the gender ratio: MDF Berlin
2009
Solo shows in total: 7 (14% female artists represented in solo shows)
Female artists: 1
Male artists: 6
Group shows in total: 2 (37% female artists represented in the group shows)
1st show included 38 artists: 14 women 24 men
2nd show included 19 artists: 7 women 13 men
2008
Solo shows in total: 7 (14% female artists represented in solo shows)
Female artist: 1
Male artist: 6
Group shows in total: 4 (23% female artists represented in the group shows)
1st show included 10 artists: 3 women 7 men
2nd show MDF no names given
3rd show included 4 artists: 0 women 4 men
4th show included 8 artists: 2 women 6 men
2007
Solo shows in total: 4 (25% female artists represented in solo shows)
Female artists: 1
Male artists: 3
Group shows in total: 6 (31% female artists represented in the group shows)
1st show included 29 artists: 14 women 15 men
2nd show included 2 artists: 1 women 1 men
3rd show included 9 artists: 3 women 6 men
4th show included 20 artists: 6 women 14 men
5th show included 26 artists: 3 of unknown gender (no first-name information for these, so we count these as female even if we sincerely doubt they were) and 23 men
6th show included 5 artists: 1 woman 4 men
There are a few group shows that don’t mention the exhibiting artists, the MDF shows mentioned above so we can't add the statistics from them.
If we combine the years we find that the solo shows has been with in total 34 male artists in-between 2007 and 2013, and only 11 female artists (24%). As for the group shows, Berlinische Galerie has shown in total 268 male artists and 94 female artists (26%) during the same time.
Now we know what the statistics says about the exhibitions at Berlinische Galerie and we absolutely don't see the results as good. At all. We hope and believe you agree with us.
We realize that you started your job in 2008, so you are in no way responsible for the deploring result of either 2007 or most likely not many shows in 2008 either, or possibly even 2009. And we know it is hard to reverse centuries of discrimination. What we have done here is only a simple counting-experiment, and unfortunately we have not yet done any research about how culturally diverse the program at Berlinische Galerie has been over the years for instance. But we sincerely hope that the current numbers will encourage you to start fresh with a hope that the city of Berlin, as diverse and sprawling as it actually is, will be represented with a much more balance in the future when it comes to essential criteria of equality within representation.
We would also sincerely encourage you to immediately start a revision of your collection as we are sure you will find holes, or even crates, where female, trans-gendered or artists who are not white are lacking of representation. Only then you will be able to start patching up what can still be patched up, this would help rectify some of the strange assumptions made today about why so few female artists are represented in the canon of the history of art. The Berlinische Galerie today unfortunately and unforgivably gives the impression that the contemporary art world and Berlin is not diverse. As artists and curators living in Berlin, we know that this gives a terribly wrong impression and we would hope you would publicly announce a new route for the Berlinische Galerie.
Power Ekroth and hannah goldstein and YOUR NAME HERE (along with others as well)?
