Race, Gender and Gagosian.

We previously wrote about our surprise when seeing the very clear racial polarity that seems to dictate many of the Gagosian galleries we visited on our trip. As we were told in the comments of that post by a Gagosian worker, Hanako Williams, it might not be a Gagosian problem but an art world problem: ‘not enough black people apply for jobs at Gagosian’.

Whereas surely Gagosian is just a mere representative of the white hegemonic structures that govern the world, it is also true it is not doing anything to try and change them. We are sure many of you already know this poster, made by the Guerilla Girls 22 years ago.

Well, it turns out that things have not changed that much chez Gagosian NYC. If this sign were to be made again today, it would look something like this:

	No. of Women 2010-2011	No. of non-white Artists 2010-2011	Total Number of Shows
West 21st Street	0	0	8
West 24th Street	1	1*	9
Madison Avenue	3	0	20**

* The ethnic-minority artist and the woman artist happen to be the same person: Ellen Gallagher (American artist of Cape Verdian and Irish descent).

** One of the shows was The Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg which had two white female artists: Trisha Brown and Susan Weil – but fair enough, it’s not Gagosian’s fault who Rauschenberg collected. Another show was Summer Shows, which was a selection of seven artists: all white, all men.

In the past two years, in the three New York locations, and over 37 shows (most of them solo shows) there have been only FOUR women and ONE non-white artist on show at the Gagosian Galleries in New York. Now, not that we believe in labels: art is art, and labels are often imposed (as it happened to Jean-Michel Basquiat in this interview) (In the fiction film Basquiat, directed by Julian Schnabel, there is a great scene where an interviewer asks Basquiat: Interviewer (played by Christopher Walken): ‘Do you consider yourself a painter or a black painter?’ Basquiat (played by Jeffrey Wright) : ‘Oh I use lots of colors not just black.’)

It is true that, unlike the front-of-house staff and security guards, one cannot ‘see’ the gender or ethnicity of the artist, yet it leaves one wondering when the vast majority of the artists on show are white and male. Perhaps it highlights a lack of inclusivity in the Gagosian galleries, not attempting to challenging the hegemonic racist and sexist structures, and in fact, nurturing them. The Gagosian Galleries are arguably the most influential gallery(network) in the world, and perhaps could make use of its privileged position to change pre-conceived notions and mechanisms in the art world, to make it more inclusive, not only to ethnic-minorities and women, but also to other profiles of people that perhaps do not feel invited into the Gagosian World, to have a voice about and participate just because of some external factors, like the way they look or their cultural background. Surely it is a ‘business’ and money is there to be made, but women and black people can produce art as saleable and profitable as white males… if only they had a chance to exhibit it. But then again, maybe this is ‘not a Gagosian problem, but an art world problem’…

PS: Here is the list of the shows at the NYC Gagosians 2010-2011:

21^st street // Andreas Gursky, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Francesco Vezzoli, Robert Rauschenberg, Marc Newson, Claude Monet, Alexander Calder

24^th street // Richard Serra, John Chamberlain, Rudolf Stingel, Ellen Gallagher, Anselm Kiefer, Dan Colen, Roy Lichtenstein, David Smith, Philip Taaffe

Madison Avenue // Howard Hodgkin, Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg (only two women: Trisha Brown and Susan Weil), Jenny Saville, Bob Dylan, Arshile Gorky, Joel Morrison, Kazimir Malevich, Piotr Uklánski, Pablo Picasso, John Currin, Jean Pigozzi, Dike Blair, Gregory Crewdson, Summer Show (Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra, Christopher Wool, Anselm Reyle, Mike Kelley, Florian Maier-Aichen), Tatiana Trouvé, Alberto Di Fabio, Ed Paschke, Elisa Sighicelli, Damien Hirst, Ed Ruscha