How does the National Gallery of Art represent America? How can the National Gallery of Art further redefine itself to attract America in the future? These questions pose a universal issue of representation and identity of a Nation. Because of that the Datathon, named “Coding Our Collection”, highlighted something that many don’t think of, the issue of representation.
The whole premise behind the Datathon of evaluating and quantifying representation while rethinking why artwork is picked reminded me of the time we met with the head history library. He talked about the questions that go into researching, and how we need to ask why the collector brought together these particular pieces. Then, we discussed how those questions can further our ideas of our own questions we were exploring. History in the digital age is changing as new questions are being asked.
To evaluate the galleries techniques and contributors is to ensure the future of the Gallery. Everything changes.
The first segment talked about the representation of women artists within the national gallery as their work being put on display. The representation is way below that of men, and even if their gallery were to show an exhibit totally by women the representation would still be significantly below men’s representation.
Another segment talked about women’s contribution in the donation spectrum of the National Gallery. A late 40’s percentage of donors were women. Even though female artists weren’t nearly as represented, a significant number of women did have a say in the collections of the Gallery. Names of artists are something that’s well known in comparison to the benefactors. Benefactors are just as important as Artists. Artists create, but without someone to acknowledge that beauty it is insignificant.
Each of these presentations offers a new take on how the National Gallery is to change and grow, and representation is something that a Nation needs to feel whole.
