From Provocation to Progress: Has the Art World Evolved Since 1989?
In 1989, the Guerrilla Girls—an anonymous collective of feminist artists—put up a billboard asking a relevant (yet biting) question: “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?” Originally supposed to be a billboard, commissioned by the Public Art Fund in New York, the subject matter was soon shelved. However, the group did not deter from their mission and found a home in New York public transit. The now iconic image is a rendition of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ 1814 oil painting, titled, “Grande Odalisque.“
The statistics they disclosed were dumbfounding. At the time, less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections of the Met Museum were women, while 85% of all the artworks were those of nude women. It was undoubtedly, a critique of gender inequality in art museums. But what did they aim to achieve with this billboard? It highlighted the systemic exclusion of women artists from the then male-dominated spaces, while simultaneously exposing the hypocrisy, of the persistent objectification of women in the museum’s art collections.
Courtesy – DESA Unicum
We have to ask this question now. It has been over three decades, but has anything changed for good? While art institutions claim to be more inclusive, female artists still struggle for representation in major museum collections. When revisiting the Guerrilla Girls’ iconic critique of the Met Museum’s gender bias, we are forced to ask ourselves, if true progress has been made, or is the token representation a claim to that of a real transformation in art spaces, and hence, the general society as well?
Naked Truths: Why Female Bodies Still Dominate Museum Walls, Not Female Artists
The Guerrilla Girls’ poster remains alarmingly relevant because the nudity in art history and gender politics has not faded from museum halls. The hypervisibility of naked female figures, when juxtaposed with the invisibility of female artists from the major museum collections, showcases a dubious image. Even today, exhibitions of allegedly “immense prominence” continue to celebrate male painters like Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning, while groundbreaking female artists remain sidelined.
In 2012, when the Guerrilla Girls revisited their statistics, they found that the situation was far from better. The female artists’ representation in the Met Museum had barely improved. Even though museums were a getaway for women artists to proudly showcase their work, the percentage of female nudes in the collection had risen to 83%. This imbalance was enough to prove how female representation in the Met Museum was still skewed. It is as if, the public was forced to witness women as subjects, rather than creators of their own lives or history.
It seems as if the museums (and not only the Met) continue to uphold a tradition where the female body is an object of aesthetic pleasure, controlled by the male gaze, serving as a slave to their carnal desires. By questioning who gets to create and who is merely portrayed, Guerrilla Girls’ feminist art activism continues to push institutions to confront their ingrained patriarchal biases. Their work, in particular, “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum? remains a call to arms for curators and art collectors to reconsider how art history is framed and how the biases in the amplified voices.
The Met’s Gender Gap and the Fight for Inclusive Curation
The statistics that the Guerrilla Girls first exposed in 1989 did more than just provoke conversation—they laid bare the gender inequality in art museums and fueled a movement demanding institutional change. While some progress has been made, the Met’s gender gap persists, raising crucial questions about how museums decide whose work deserves recognition.
Over the past decade, we have seen increased efforts to diversify museum acquisitions, but these efforts remain slow and inconsistent. While institutions like the Tate Modern and the Whitney Museum have made strides in gender equity, the Met and other historically male-dominated spaces continue to fall behind. Revisiting the Guerrilla Girls’ iconic critique of the Met Museum’s gender bias reminds us that representation cannot be performative; it must be an active and ongoing commitment.
The fight for inclusive curation is not just about adding a few female artists to permanent collections; it is about dismantling the structures that have long marginalized women in art. It is about questioning why certain artists are deemed “masters” while others remain overlooked. It is about reexamining the way we tell art history and ensuring that future generations encounter a broader, more inclusive artistic canon.
Conclusion
The Guerrilla Girls’ work remains a crucial intervention in the art world, proving that change does not happen by chance—it must be demanded. Their question, “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?” remains just as relevant today as it was in 1989. Until museums prioritize true inclusivity over superficial diversity efforts, the critique will continue to resonate. Revisiting the Guerrilla Girls’ iconic critique of the Met Museum’s gender bias is not just an exercise in reflection but a call to action for a more equitable art world.
Image Courtesy – Harvard Art Museums
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