[artinfo] A Critical Inventory

[Newsletter Summer 2019]

4/10 - A Critical Inventory of the IKOB Collection

July 03 - September 29, 2019
Collection of IKOB,
Museum of Contemporary Art,  Eupen, Belgium 

With regard to the equal treatment of female and 
male artists, 2019 is apparently turning out to 
be a year of reappraisal at several art- and 
culture-institutions. For example, for twelve 
months starting this April, the Tate Modern in 
London is exclusively featuring female artists 
from its own collection. Through a focus on works 
of art by women, which are exhibited 
percentage-wise far less frequently than those by 
men, female artists are to be more strongly 
represented and their contribution to art history 
is to be more appropriately acknowledged. There 
are also projects such as these outside the 
visual arts. Thus the Karlsruhe State Theatre is 
hiring only female directors for the 2018/19 
season. The IKOB is likewise seeking to make its 
contribution to an endeavour that is actually 
long overdue. We engaged in a closer analysis of 
our collection and investigated the question as 
to how many works of art came from women and how 
many from men. It turned out that exactly 40% of 
the works in the collection were done by women. 
Four out of ten is not a bad ratio in comparison 
to other museums, whose percentage seems to be 
stuck at around 25%. In comparison, between 2009 
and 2011 the share of works by female artists 
purchased by museums in North Rhine-Westphalia 
was no more than 28%, and only 22% of all solo 
exhibitions receiving financial support from that 
German state were by female artists. Why is this 
low percentage surprising? Because for decades, 
the share of women at German art academies has 
been constantly over 60%; and with regard to the 
art prizes awarded by the state, there is at 
least an even distribution between women and men. 
But as soon as it is a matter of participation in 
exhibitions at galleries, museums and art 
associations, it is striking that women lag 
behind men with shocking regularity. If one then 
examines the list of the most commercially 
successful artists, it becomes evident that the 
number of top earners who are women continues to 
be infinitesimally small.

Since a reappraisal can only take place there 
where people are aware of this differentiation, 
the exhibition 4/10, A Critical Inventory of the 
IKOB Collection, constitutes the beginning of an 
endeavour to do justice to the female artists 
from our collection with regard to contents, and 
to support their contributions to the uniqueness 
of the (East-)Belgian art scene by bringing those 
creations to light. For that reason, the motto of 
the moment is 'men into storage, women into the 
museum.

Works by the following female artists are on 
display: Gonry Maria Hasemeier-Eulenbruch, Vera 
Hilger, Irmel Kamp, Stefanie Klingemann, 
Marie-Claire Krell, Sophie Langohr, Andrea 
Lehnert, Barbara Leisgen, Esther Liégeois, Lilith 
Love, Sylvie Macías Díaz, Nora Mertes, Beatrice 
Minda, Krain Missy Paule, Tanja Mosblech, Yvonne
Marie-France Bonmariage, Ellen Brusselmans, 
Jeanne-Claude, Johanna Deiglmayr-Buchholz, 
Delphine Deguislage, Lili Dujourie, Margret 
Eicher, Karin Frank, Casaluce Geiger, Denise 
Gilles, LaurenceMostard, Sali Muller, Chloé Op de 
Beeck, Tímea Anita Oravecz, Tinka Pittoors, 
Andrea Radermacher-Mennicken, Jana Rusch, Bärbel 
Schulte Kellinhaus, Alice Smeets, Merlin Spie, 
Catharina van Eetvelde, Marlies Vermeulen (Dear 
Hunter), Sophie Whettnall, Denyse Willem

<https://timeaoravecz.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=4d0b5338eca3d7805094bd77b&id=cdd61cf3be&e=72dd242cbd>http://www.ikob.be/ausstellungen/10-eine-kritische-bestandsaufnahme-der-ikob-sammlung