Maura Reilly – Curatorial Activism

[Sorry, Dr Maura Reilly ‘Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating’ a lecture by Sydney College of the Arts does not exist any more on Youtube.]

New Book by Maura Reilly to Be Published in Spring 2018

Maura Reilly on the sexism of the art world: Numbers don’t lie! Just look at the statistics of the art institutions. It is important not to be seduced by what appears to be full equality in the art world for it must be stated and re-stated that women have never been treated on par with men. The bias is present at the top of the art institutions. Male boards tend to hire men. In 2014 there were no women directors in any of the state galleries in Australia. Most of Australia’s galleries have never had a female director. This discrimination at the top trickles down through every aspect of the art world from auction prices to review, etc.

Curatorial Activism – Towards an Ethics of Curating
by Maura Reilly and Lucy Lippard
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Artwork: 100 illustrations
Size: 6.88 in x 9 in
Forthcoming: April 17th, 2018
ISBN-10: 0500239703
ISBN-13: 9780500239704
Pre-order the book at Thames & Hudson

The description of the book reads: ‘Current art world statistics demonstrate that the fight for gender and race equality in the art world is far from over: only sixteen percent of this year’s Venice Biennale artists were female; only fourteen percent of the work displayed at MoMA in 2016 was by nonwhite artists; only a third of artists represented by U.S. galleries are female, but over two-thirds of students enrolled in art and art-history programs are young women. …’

Maura Reilly has recently published the article What Is Curatorial Activism? which is adapted from her new book Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating (to be published April 2018 by Thames & Hudson). In this article she talks about Curatorial Activism as a means to the wrongs of the contemporary art world’s curatorial malpractice and discrimination.

Maura Reilly

is a curator, arts writer, and Executive Director of the National Academy Museum and School in New York. She is Founding Curator of the Sackler Center for Feminist Art.