It’s been 27 years since the Guerrilla Girls did their first “weenie count,” and sadly, not much has changed since they made their first poster revealing gender inequality in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection. The collective has done a few counts since then, with similar results.
Following the example of the Guerrilla Girls is Gallery Tally, an ongoing project dedicated to pointing out the paltry number of female artists represented by art galleries worldwide.
From March 9-April 17, over 400 posters created for Gallery Tally will be on view at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE).
Mira Safura O’Brien’s poster for Mary Boone Gallery. Courtesy of the Gallery Tally Poster Project.
The posters, created by a network of artists, reveal an alarming number of galleries that are still skewed towards representing mostly male artists.
Dwora Fried’s poster for Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel. Courtesy of the Gallery Tally Poster Project.
Gallery Tally began in 2013, organized by artist Micol Hebron.
If you’re on Instagram, you might have heard of Hebron for her digital pasty of a male nipple, designed to censor the “offensive” female nipple from the photo-sharing app. She also carried out a study into the male-female ratios of artists featured in Artforum.
Mira Gerard’s poster for Gavin Brown’s Enterprise. Courtesy of the Gallery Tally Poster Project.
“The project has also been inspired by social media and ubiquitous trends in collecting and visualizing Big Data,” reads the exhibition’s description, “by the histories of punk, propaganda and politics that the poster format has; and by the activism and social practice of artists such as the Guerrilla Girls, Suzanne Lacy, Judy Chicago, and Andrea Bowers.”
Cindy Rehm’s poster for Team Gallery. Courtesy of the Gallery Tally Poster Project.
A series of programs, from a conversation with feminist teenage boys, to a feminist mixer, to transfeminist discussion, and a video art festival comprising contemporary works by female-identified makers, coincides with the exhibition.
If you’re not in Los Angeles, you can see all the Gallery Tally posters on the project’s blog here.
“(En)Gendered (In)Equity: The Gallery Tally Poster Project” opens on March 9 and runs until April 17 at LACE in Los Angeles.