Do women still have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?

During the late 80s, an anonymous activist group by the name 'Guerilla Girls' embellished the side of New York buses with a reproduction of the female nude figure from French artist Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's painting Grande Odalisque, but with a twist.

The sensual nude was shown wearing a gorilla mask, the Guerilla Girls' signature symbol. Alongside the nude, there was a startling statistic that read "less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female", exposing the institutionalised sexism within the art world. The poster was soon taken down for being too inciting, but the Guerilla Girls have since reissued the poster in 2005 and 2012, attesting to its continued resonance. Now, over three decades on, do women still have to be naked to get into art museums?

A 2019 study of 18 major U.S. art museums confirmed that lack of diversity in the art world is still a pressing concern. The study found that out of 10,000 artists, 87% are male and 85% white. Evidently, the current curation model is complicit in the pervasiveness of discrimination in art, as it reinforces not only patriarchal but also racial power structures. This disparity is not just confined to museums but extends to literature. For example, one of the bestselling art books, often used as a textbook for students, Gombrich's The Story of Art, mentions only one female artist in its 688 pages. These harrowing figures paint a picture of the glass ceiling that many female artists and other underrepresented groups struggle to break.

These figures are not due to a lack of engagement in the art world from female artists, and they certainly do not reflect any deficiency in their talent compared to their male counterparts. Rather, it highlights the elitism and exclusivity that continues to dominate the art world.

The Guerilla Girls have declared themselves the “conscience of the art world”, exposing biases and corruption. Their endeavours sadly remain just as relevant today, as the call for greater recognition and inclusion grows stronger. It is time to draw the line — it's time to break down these barriers and redefine who gets to shape the cultural narrative. Women deserve to have a presence in art museums, not just as a nude to be leered at, but as a respected equal recognised for their talent.