If warning were needed that progress towards equality between men and women is at best slow and uneven, and at worst sliding backwards, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report for 2023 provided it. But on the face of it, the art world would seem to be bucking the trend, with a cascade of challenges to the status quo. In London alone, these include a rehang at the National Portrait Gallery, bringing more women into focus, and the first solo takeover of the main galleries of the Royal Academy by a female artist.
Internationally, the year was topped off by ArtReview handing the top slot in its Power 100 list of art’s most influential people to the American photographer Nan Goldin. Her most conspicuous achievement has been her campaign against the billionaire Sackler dynasty, whose company, Purdue Pharma, fuelled the opioid epidemic in America. But her activism, which has resulted in a slew of institutions cutting ties with the family, and striking their name from buildings, is rooted in her work as a pioneering photographic observer. Her 50-year focus on the intimate lives of people pushed to the margins of society by sexuality, addiction, or a simple refusal to fit in, has documented alternative histories, and inspired younger generations of artists to do likewise.
