The final part of this lesson looks at two manifestos that are about working for change in art institutions.
Yes! Association (2005) Equal Opportunities Agreement (#1, 2005)
This manifesto is in the ebook.
Feminist (art) Institution (Tereza Stejskalová) Code of Practice (2017). A Manifesto arising from a series of seminars at Transit, Prague, Czech Republic, in 2017, now available in the ebook (2022).
This manifesto is only available online, as it was written after the ebook was published.
These two manifestos take up two different ways of organising which are common within the women’s movement since the 1970s.
The first is the demand for legislative and contractual change from existing institutions and government.
The second is about the aspiration to build alternative types of art institutions.
Both documents raise the important question:
Can principles of feminist working be embodied in institutions and practices in their codes of practice or contractual arrangements?
Yes! Association (2005) Equal Opportunities Agreement (#1, 2005)
This text is in the ebook and it is also on the group’s website which documents their work.
The Equal Opportunities Agreement was produced as an intervention by a group of women artists at the opening of a major exhibition about Swedish feminist art in 2005-2007: Konstfeminism—Strategier och effekter i Sverige från 1970-talet till idag [Art Feminism—Strategies and Consequences in Sweden from the 1970s to the Present] [Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg; October 14, 2005—January 22, 2006; Liljevalchs Konsthall, Stockholm; June 17—September 3, 2006; Hälsinglands Museum, Hudiksvall; September 17— December 31, 2006; Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Göteborg; 13 January—April 15, 2007]
Artists Line S Karlström, Johanna Gustavsson, Malin Arnell, Anna Linder and Fia-Stina Sandlund were brought together in February 2005 by the art historian Eva Hallin, for a conversation about “feminist strategies of resistance” in preparation for the exhibition.
You can read their account of why they organised the agreement as a response on their website: https://www.foreningenja.org/en/2005/10/
They began the project because they were critical about the ways in which this large group show, the only one that there had been on the history of feminism in Sweden, was organised. These concerns were both economic and ideological; about national boundaries and the representations of feminisms in intersectional terms as a result of what constituted “Swedish”; about the institutionalisation of feminism, its historicisation as a past, not a present and its depoliticisation.
Since the beginning of the preparations, the list of participating artists has not included artists of any other ethnic background than “Swedish”. The curatorial group was well informed by queer theory, but nowhere did they consider an intersectional perspective, which according to us, is the most appropriate analytic tool to use to analyse power structures and hierarchies. We regarded the plan to squeeze together approximately 120 of Sweden’s most trendsetting artists and categorise their work under different themes, as belittling. Works with a political force risked becoming annexed brands lending their brilliance to the establishment. We felt that the curators of Art Feminism presented singular feminist art pieces but were not working informed by a more complex understanding of feminism as a political force. In our opinion they failed to think beyond the formal aspect of the show on how feminism could be implemented throughout the entire production of the show and thereby also practiced. Additionally, we felt that the exhibition through its focus on the 1970’s, risked turning out to be a “safe” exhibition; an exhibition pointing backwards.
Most importantly, they were concerned to test whether this was a token one-off exhibition, or the start of some significant change at an institutional level:
Were the institutions behind the exhibition Art Feminism (and other art institutions that in theory claim to be against discrimination) ready to practice what they preached? Were they ready for a legal agreement – to take responsibility for their expressed wish for equality and sign a binding contract?
You can read a review of it by Power Ekroth in Art Monthly, which was critical of its national focus and its definitions of feminisms. There is an extensive catalogue of the exhibition in Swedish, with English translations, with an impressive number of essays looking at different aspects of feminist politics and art in Sweden.
The group then started a national campaign to encourage other art galleries and museums to sign up to this equal opportunities agreement. Art galleries and museums are funded by government and as such answerable to tax-payers and public service legislation or codes of practice.
As a group, they also sought to exhibit as a means of raising awareness of the issues. They developed and continue to develop their ideas through public performance, workshops and different actions: under the slogan, ‘We will move in triangular formations and step on each other’s feet.’
How was it that an exhibition reviewing feminist art in Sweden produced this agreement as a blueprint for organising gender equality in museums and exhibitions?
One of the central arguments of the feminist movement since the 1970s was about the gap between a rhetoric about equality/equal rights having been achieved and its actual implementation in people’s everyday lives. Fighting for equal opportunities was one of the political tactics adopted by the feminist movement in the late 1970s as a means of changing how policy decisions were made and implemented at all levels of government and in government institutions. It preceded today’s ideas of “gender mainstreaming” and different “diversity and inclusion initiatives”. Gender equality is named as one of the protected characteristics in equal rights legislation or anti-sex discrimination legislation adopted in many countries (at very different times). Business and management still makes the case against equal opportunities that it “saps” creativity, shows a disregard for authority and “those more qualified to manage”, does not differentiate staff according to function and grades, creates horizontal structures rather than competitive ones, and prioritises quota systems, rather than talent. For an example of this see this article by Ruth Mayhew.
