How are girls artists faring as of late? In line with a brand new survey commissioned by Anonymous Was A Woman, the humanities nonprofit identified for its grant-making, and compiled by reporter-researchers Julia Halperin and Charlotte Burns along with SMU Information Arts (and exclusively released online by ARTnews), the reply is complicated—and in some ways disheartening. However one factor is certain: The artwork world is all ears. Final Wednesday, greater than 300 individuals stuffed an auditorium at New York College to listen to in regards to the survey and take heed to a collection of panel discussions dedicated to the findings.
Afterward, a gaggle of 40 invited girls professionals within the arts—leaders of museums and nonprofits, philanthropy employees, artists, and gallerists—participated in roundtables to debate the survey and the talks. On the finish of all of it, they anonymously jotted down solutions to 2 questions: What have you ever discovered? What are you able to do?
To offer better entry to the day’s occasions, ARTnews has created a video with key highlights from the symposium and compiled some key takeaways from the nameless responses.
Group Is Essential
Within the survey, an amazing majority of respondents (79 p.c) cited creative group and networks as key to their careers, naming residency applications among the many high sources that might additional enrich their sense of belonging.
Group was a significant theme throughout the panel discussions as properly, with MoMA PS1 director Connie Butler saying she felt there to be an absence of group for ladies artists proper now, ending on a constructive be aware that she feels a necessity for extra of it.
One nameless roundtable respondent echoed Butler’s sentiment: “There’s a tangible sense of lack or loss felt by artists by way of institutional help and group constructing.”
Founder Susan Unterberg offers her opening assertion on the Nameless Was A Girl Symposium at NYU.
Photograph Casey Kelbaugh/CKA
Different respondents pointed to the necessity for extra discussions; the facility of solidarity and dealing collectively; the significance of “intergenerational group … as a method of significant long-term structural change”; the significance of belief inside communities of girls artists; the sensation that group suggests “a extra native strategy to eager about the artwork world.” Group “requires help, connection, and compassion.”
One other wrote “I’m actually nonetheless eager about how we will shift our concepts in regards to the distinction between artwork group and artwork world,” observing that the previous is oriented towards useful resource sharing.
How will we get there? Respondents stated they might personally do that by means of extra listening and energetic participation in community-based discussions; utilizing one’s platform as a help system; and facilitating areas for alternate.
The final word aim, one identified, could possibly be “group activism. … Proper now, arts and tradition is a crucial automobile for resistance.”
From left, artists Steffani Jemison, Coco Fusco, and Judith Bernstein throughout the Artists Converse panel, moderated by journalist Julia Halperin (proper), on the Nameless Was A Girl Symposium.
Photograph Casey Kelbaugh/CKA
Monetary Precarity and Lack of Sources
In recounting what they discovered from the report and symposium, many roundtable contributors pointed to a very bleak part of the survey on girls artists’ monetary precarity: Many reside under the poverty degree, lack studio area, and a majority are in a position to spend solely half their time making artwork. The largest monetary points for ladies artists, after housing and debt, are studio area, storage, and supplies. After which there may be childcare.
On one of many panels, artists shared real-life tales of how they discovered resourceful methods to make all of it work. Coco Fusco recounted shopping for her home in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant with a bank card mortgage simply earlier than gentrification took over the neighborhood. As a Latina artist, she stated that her principal supply of help over time has come from “African American lady. If it weren’t for [them], I wouldn’t be right here. …They perceive the battle … and have created their very own infrastructure.”
Judith Bernstein, a cofounder of the Seventies feminist artwork area Artists in Residence (A.I.R.) stated wryly: “I advised naming it Twenty Ladies Artists Collectively (T.W.A.T.),” and talked about her choice to earn cash from having tenants. “I assumed, ‘You possibly can have a husband or tenants, what would you favor?’ Tenants are much less bother.”
Outcomes of the AWAW Artist Survey proven on the Nameless Was A Girl Symposium.
Photograph Casey Kelbaugh/CKA
Steffani Jemison stated she used the $20,000 grant she acquired from the Louis Consolation Tiffany Basis in 2013 as a down cost on a home as a result of that was the easiest way for her to help her work on the time. She identified that it had taken her household years to accumulate generational wealth due to discriminatory redlining practices in Cincinnati, the place she was raised.
Distinguished among the many roundtable responses have been requires extra unrestricted grants, like these given by Nameless Was A Girl, which since its founding in 1996 has distributed greater than $5 million on to girls artists over the age of 40. Since its 2024 cycle, the muse has given $50,000 every to fifteen girls and nonbinary artists.
On a panel, Ruth Basis govt director Karen Patterson talked in regards to the significance of unrestricted grants like those her group offers out to each arts nonprofits throughout the nation and artists alike. Questioning the restrictions on some grants, Patterson stated, “the outdated mannequin of belief just isn’t radical. If it has been eroded whereas we have been watching, why is that?”
The viewers throughout the Artists Converse panel on the Nameless Was A Girl Symposium.
Photograph Casey Kelbaugh/CKA
Can Establishments Do Extra?
Virtually two thirds of survey respondents (63 p.c) stated {that a} lack of museum or institutional backing hinders their careers, and greater than half (59 p.c) felt the identical manner about galleries. Most of the roundtable responses drew consideration to what the survey indicated is a results of this: Many ladies artists (55 p.c of respondents) are promoting their work independently.
Proving that establishments can change was Dia Basis director Jessica Morgan, who delivered a keynote on the progress she has made at Dia since she took over in 2014. For example, prior to now decade, the proportion of girls artists within the assortment has elevated from 6.8 p.c in 2015 to 29 p.c in 2025 by means of her centered acquisition technique.
Jessica Morgan offers the keynote on the Nameless Was A Girl Symposium.
Photograph Casey Kelbaugh/CKA
Sellers, curators, and museum administrators who attended the roundtables confused the significance of sharing the report with their colleagues and artists. They have been additionally pretty particular about what could possibly be executed, resembling additional selling visibility by means of exhibition applications and acquisitions, in addition to exploring under-recognized narratives.
One stated she would “proceed to accumulate work by girls artists for my establishment—and never essentially by means of galleries however instantly from artists with out illustration.” One other stated that “small establishments [that] don’t depend on admissions or authorities funding could be significantly helpful as organizers or bases of operation.” There was additionally the suggestion of “collaborat[ing] with … legal professionals and basic counsels within the artwork world round equitable and culturally conscious contracts.”
The New Fashions for Ladies Artists panel on the Nameless Was A Girl Symposium.
Photograph Casey Kelbaugh/CKA
What Can and Can’t Be Stated
Precisely half of the survey respondents felt they might not converse freely with out concern of profession penalties, one thing that was felt extra acutely by younger artists and artists of shade. This was mentioned within the talks and roundtables within the context of ongoing structural points on this planet which are solely being heightened throughout the present presidential administration. (One roundtable participant famous of the survey, which was accomplished in late 2024, “50 p.c felt they might not converse freely and that is BEFORE the current administration got here into energy.”)
One other wrote, “That is the way it regarded like 20 years in the past. Is it as a result of we’re extra depending on funders and establishments and galleries to point out work?”
Butler, the PS1 director, talked in regards to the present backlash to girls’s progress and puzzled if artists and others could must resort to opacity, within the Glissantian sense. And Jemison added, “It has occurred to me {that a} proposal just isn’t supportable by an establishment due to its political content material.” Jemison additionally confused the significance of selecting one’s battles by being strategic about what to say in what context.
From left, Nicola Vassell, Karen Patterson, Charlotte Burns, Rashida Bumbray, and Connie Butler on stage for the New Fashions for Ladies Artists panel on the Nameless Was A Girl Symposium.
Photograph Casey Kelbaugh/CKA
Plus Ça Change…
One feeling that was echoed all through the roundtable responses could be captured within the remark of 1 attendee that “regardless of superficial appearances, issues really haven’t modified a lot.”
Others expressed it otherwise: “Regardless of the adjustments which have occurred in previous 40–50 years within the variety of individuals/artists in galleries/establishments, the information isn’t a surprise and related relative to 40–50 yrs in the past.” In line with one other, “Not that a lot has modified and there are a variety of systemic points that may stay everlasting for a while.” The survey “confirmed my assumptions in regards to the place of girls artists,” a 3rd stated.
However the survey and symposium weren’t all doom and gloom. “I used to be glad to see that greater than 59 p.c of respondents felt their sense of artist belonging was robust,” stated one response. On a panel, gallerist Nicola Vassell identified that there are alternatives for ladies artists within the “nice wealth switch” from child boomers to their heirs, as a result of a lot of that cash will go to girls.
And curator and choreographer Rashida Bumbray, who organized the convention for Black girls artists “Loophole of Retreat” in Venice in 2022 as a part of Simone Leigh’s US Pavilion for the Biennale, put a robust emphasis on constructing on the work executed by girls artists prior to now, just like the late artist Lorraine O’Grady, who stated, on the 2022 gathering, “this motion is unstoppable. We’re not combating to be seen.” Nonetheless, Bumbray warned about “not equating visibility with energy.”
Maybe one final nameless remark, citing a stat within the survey, says all of it: “That 49 p.c of girls … really feel not taken significantly … factors to deep-seated structural issues, and it might be good to grasp the nuances of it. It additionally emphasizes the necessity to take heed to girls.”
