DEMAND

TO ALL CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUMS OF THE WORLD

Museums, galleries, and all kinds of contemporary art institutions have always occupied a prestigious place in society and have the power to influence the masses. These institutes are not only important to the art world but have an influential political position enabling them to initiate movements and make impactful changes. But the art market has been influencing and driving important decisions of the current art world.

The current economic model of the contemporary art market is built on a manipulative and speculative system that is highly influenced by the interests of specific people. It is also evident that even highly experienced and intelligent people are not able to influence the art world. The ArtNewspaper published in 2017 stated that almost one-third of solo shows in US museums go to artists represented by just five galleries. A research study carried out by Cornell University in 2018 has also identified that 85% of artists in major U.S. museums are white. According to Fabian Bocart, in 2018, overall 96.1% of artworks sold at auction are by male artists.

If art institutions have been recently moving toward diversifying their exhibitions and permanent collections to remediate the historic underrepresentation of non-male and non-white people in the curatorial approach, western contemporary art institutions still have a long way to go in diversifying their exhibitions and collections, as they keep excluding people who experience one or several discriminations relating to their gender, ethnicity, (dis)ability(es), sexuality, age, etc…

We, The Organization for the Democratization of the Visual Arts (ODBK), claim that the actual contemporary art world system urgently needs better representation of artists who are not from the white cis-male hegemony. That’s why we have officially launched a petition to demand diversity in exhibitions and collections of contemporary art institutions. For this, we demand urgent and immediate compliance with the following points to all contemporary art institutions in the world:

1. Transparency: Every institution must publish publicly (on their website) the statistics of the characteristics of the artists selected and collected by the institution, like ethnicity, gender, country of origin, age, etc. in number and percentages per year

2. Action: Implement mechanisms and strategies to create equality, diversity and inclusion for the artists selected and whose work is collected

3. Goal: Establish the same goal the ODBK set up in the petition: a quota of two-third of artists from the discriminated groups, in the selection of exhibitions and collections.

4. Sign: All personnel of the institution should sign the petition under the link https://chng.it/Z7dXNmtQ6j

If your institution needs orientation on how to proceed and implement those points and wants to support this Demand sending your comments, opinions and ideas write to us at info@odbk.tk and we will be happy to help.

A more equal, diverse, and inclusive art world better represents true art.

David Hinojosa Admann

ODBK Founder and Director

Sign the petition GO TO ODBK HOME PAGE