The Gerrymandering of Art Museums by Gender

Since the election of Conservative governments in the cultural West, there has been a screaming siren about the politics of Museum art.  Using rudimentary arithmetic, activists have counted the number of pieces of art that belong to major museums and have discovered that men are historically (to date) more highly represented than women.

This lonely, unrepresentative of any context save provincial politics, factoid is sufficient to provoke an aesthetic Sherman's March on the collections of major museums.  Numerology and not historical context, quality, nor even a sense of decency is driving one museum after another to make these numbers match population demographics (gender only of course).

The fact that these collections were largely donated by wealthy collectors and connoisseurs whose cultural ecology was ambiently patriarchal is immaterial.  The cult of Numerology in sexual politics is both profitable, politically satisfying, and culturally toxic.  Museum shows now pander to a mass of contemporary female artists whose claim to recognition starts and often ends with genital equipment however installed.

I recognize that I'm - excuse the expression - pissing into the wind by pointing out that a historically accurate museum should be imbalanced prior to the mid-nineteenth century and be correcting its acquisitions to the degree that they can control gifts from then on.

In 2020, the Baltimore museum will only but women's art.  What's the rush?  Why isn't a healthier balance of acquisition just good business every year?

WE ALL KNOW that this will not be followed by a year dedicated to buying only men's art. After all what sin have today's male artists committed to be flogged for years with womens only shows, economic boycott, and  suicidal worthy neglect?  Are there sociological studies that recommend these kinds of remedies?

And although museum collections are mathematically imbalanced, women dominate juried gallery shows  on the order of 70% women acceptance and 30% male artist acceptance.  I've been doing the arithmetic in this blog and it goes back years.

Gender advocates have been distorting art in Western countries for decades.  They can rewrite history but they cannot undo it without ruthless indifference to inescapable cultural heritage.  Museum walls are being wallpapered over with politically motivated aesthetics rather than artistic merits.  It hurts everyone and turning museums into political battlefields is unacceptable political damage.

Yesterday *this* arrived from the New Britain Museum of American Art:

Shameless pandering.