Art isn’t immune to gender inequality. Various surveys and research on representation and sales in the market have proven this time and again, including a 2019 study by In Other Words art agency and Artnet News revealing that works by women accounted for only 2 per cent of worldwide auction sales over nearly a 10-year period.
Gallerist Oceane Sailly, who is also part of an international research group that studies inequity in the art world, is aware of this. “In the US, Germany, France and the UK, when we look at the main art fairs and museum collections, there is still a huge discrepancy in terms of representation,” she says.
Sailly also says that the pandemic has made matters worse, with many gallerists choosing to showcase more male artists to secure more income. “They’re considered safer and sell better,” she explains.
Still, in early 2021, Sailly went against the current and established Hunna, a contemporary art gallery representing female artists in the Gulf. The word is the Arabic feminine form of “they/them” and can be loosely interpreted as “the women”.
