Diversity Counts by Anne Dymond

Author:Anne Dymond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MQUP
Published: 2019-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

4.4 Gender and race of artists with solo contemporary shows at MoCCA, 2001–10

MoCCA’s partnership with the NGC is both an example of its ambition and indicative of its problems. Discussed in chapter 3 as an example of the NGC’s outreach activities, the partnership is here considered as an example of a continued lack of diversity. It was initiated in 2010 as a mutually beneficial program that allowed the NGC to exhibit its collection more broadly. From 2010 through 2013, NGC@MoCCA (as the partnership is called) had six solo shows, of which only one was of a female artist. More than that, while the male artists were varied in terms of their international reputations, the lone female artist was Louise Bourgeois, an artist of considerably higher international profile than any of the others. All six were white. In addition, the Bourgeois show should technically be excluded from my statistics, because she was no longer alive at the time of her exhibit, having died in 2010 at the age of ninety-eight. That is to say, if we consider solo shows of living artists, this collaboration consists of 100 per cent white men.

Given this poor diversity, I decided to check the numbers for group shows in this partnership from 2010 to 2013 in the hope that they might be somewhat better because of the larger sample size. There were fifty-four participants in the four group shows exhibited during this time: forty-two male artists and twelve female artists, which is extremely significant statistically.44 The group shows were also overwhelmingly white and included only three Asian and three Indigenous artists (see figure 4.5). When our national art gallery collaborates with other galleries in this way, with results that are so far from representing our nation, it is damaging to the way our histories will be told.

Staff changes following the expansion announcements promised greater diversity, but subsequent changes suggest the gallery’s old ways may continue apace. In October 2015, Chantal Pontbriand was announced as the new CEO who would oversee the institution’s expansion into the new building. While the impetus for the move seems to have come from the expiring lease, the new space has more room for the permanent collection (as it existed from the AGNY days), new acquisitions, and a shift in focus from predominantly Canadian art to a more international scene.45 This alone is a significant shift. Liss had long chafed under the Canadian mandate and has stated, “we will not be showing exclusively Canadian art here. That’s a parochial view and it’s not relevant in the twenty-first century to take a nationalistic approach.”46 The mandate of the new institution emphasizes “innovative art by Canadian and international artists whose works address challenging issues and themes relevant to our times.”47 But Pontbriand’s interests also suggested that the institution’s record on exhibiting artists of colour might shift significantly. Pontbriand has significant international experience, and had recently left her position at the Tate Modern to take up a position in Toronto as the artistic director and

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