Katy Hessel: 'Everyone has to own their identity'

Hindustan Times

09-05-2025

An art fair where you couldn't find a single work by women artists inspired you to create an Instagram page to showcase artworks by women and also enabled you to write The Story of Art Without Men. This erasure persists. At an all-male retrospective exhibition in January, I asked the curator about the erasure of women artists. Please contextualise why this remains the case.
How good that you noticed and were able to call that out. I think that's what it's about. We've to constantly remind ourselves about representation, and not in a pity sense at all.
It has to be a good, interesting work with a unique perspective. Textile can be a great work. So can be a piece of lace. A quilt can tell an incredible story as can a marble sculpture. Greatness can come in so many different ways. Where I live, in London, you think about what is great art built on. It's the Royal Academy, which was opened in the 18th century, and that very much established hierarchies in art. But who had access to all that? Men! It was almost built to kind of keep the women out. So, these hierarchies that have been built on what's great, they're so boring because if you're not seeing art by a wide range of people, then you're not seeing society as a whole. And you're just missing out on great art.
At the Jaipur Literature Festival, someone asked a question about labels. Though it's crucial, in a way, to do away with labels, we still do not have a level playing field. There is a history of sanitising the artworks of those who are not men. Then, there are the scholarships and grants based on an individual's identity from the margins. So, labels present a unique conundrum here. How do you reconcile with that?
It's like, would I want to be seen as a woman writer? Or would I want to be seen as a writer? I don't mind. But when I say 'a woman writer', to me, it doesn't mean anything derogatory or negative. Whereas in history, it was a derogatory thing. We're seeing this debate because of what we've witnessed. I talk about this, especially in the abstract expressionism chapter of the book that these women would abhor the idea of me putting them in this book because they were told that being a woman was a bad thing. It's not anything less.
Everyone has to own their identity. I own, for one, being a woman writer, but I also own being a writer. I don't want to be a token of sorts. What I mean by doing away with labels is that we shouldn't reduce this to a trend. We have to own all our identities but we must also disrupt, which is why I wrote this book. We need more works to spotlight works by women, nonbinary, and trans artists because they've not been given the space. The statistics prove that. For example, in London, only 1% of the National Gallery is by women artists, so there's a lot of work to be done.
You also say that this book is not the definitive history of art. What's left to be uncovered besides the bit about identity that we discussed?
I've never been to Japan. Or China. Or even a few places in the African continent. Also: I want to go back to a few places, for example, Brazil. That doesn't mean I'm not writing about them. I'm writing about tons of Japanese artists, but it'd have been great to see them for their context. I was in Delhi in January and I met so many artists of my age. I met older, established artists, so it was great to see their work in person and talk to them. It was exciting. I've a little column in the Guardian, and I've written about Ayesha Singh's work. There's always more to be exhumed.
During the consolidation of the works by women, what were the challenges you faced?
Oh, so many. Think about how many books there are on Michelangelo alone or Leonardo da Vinci but how many books there are about 16th and 17th-century women artists from Bologna or Italy or some other place? Hardly any. I was very lucky to stand on the shoulders of a lot of scholars who have come before me and whose works I have championed with my podcast and also with this book. It's very much a sort of collaboration in a way. Sometimes I'd learn that a work has been recently attributed to a woman artist, that sort of a thing one always discovers. We're starved of that knowledge.
What are the new ways of looking and critiquing in the world of art that you are witnessing today?
It's not like these artists [who're being exhumed] never existed. They've always existed. But I think it's about who gets to write art history, who gets to curate the shows, who gets to collect the art, who gets to support the artists.
I think that's changing. And that's important because the more people we have talking behind the scenes, the more that it's going to change because the artist's job is to make art. I'm not the artist. I'm there to facilitate.
What was the one discovery you made during your research that blew your mind.
My favourite is the Metropolitan Museum of Art story. In 1917, the Met in New York bought a painting for $200,000 when it was under the impression that it was by the neoclassical artist, Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825). And then decades later, they found out it was actually by a woman, Marie-Denise Villers. Would they have paid the same price tag? I don't know. But it definitely makes one curious about it.
If we're talking about the valuation of art, what immediately comes to mind is the $120,000 Art Basel Banana, titled Comedian. There's a group that says it was not about a banana and duct tape, but the concept; then, there's the other faction that says that it's bizarre.
I mean, I see both sides of [Maurizio] Cattelan's work. I think he's making a critique of the world that we live in and what the art market has become. In a way, what is art if not holding up a mirror to the world that you live in? That's one thing. I think it's clever to do that, this artwork. But I also think that it's complicated. You spend that much money and for what purpose? For what status? Is it for the purpose of art history? Or for the purpose of something else? I don't know. The value of art is a very complex, unregulated thing. I think maybe people's intentions aren't always something that is actually going to be exciting or progressive. If anything, it's actually just a bit boring.
Saurabh Sharma is a Delhi-based writer and freelance journalist. They can be found on Instagram/X: @writerly_life.