inequality in the art world?
Can algorithms help battle inequality in the art world?
By Manique Hendricks / independent curator
This essay responds to an invitation to write about and around the group exhibition Private Song 1, on view at Doosan Gallery, Seoul, from July 22 to August 19, 2020.
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In the past months the murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor have sparked protests in order to stand up against a long history of racial violence and injustice towards Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) in America. In solidarity with the
Black Lives Matter movement, protests in other parts of the world followed quickly, addressing racial injustice around the globe. This has caused many museums and other cultural organizations to rethink their position. The majority of these institutions have been built on colonial structures, often still reflected in collections and collecting policies, exhibitions, staff, board members and partners. Actions are needed at this time since the existing structures seem to go hand in hand with inequality within the art world. According to curator and writer Kimberly Drew, what museums should be working on right now is: “How can we, as an institution think about the way that we change the work that we do, that’s the question we should be having(*1) instead of how do we react. ” Since one of the main core tasks of museums is to organize exhibitions for the general public, how can this practice be shifted and adjusted in a positive manner to battle inequality in the art world?
Curatorial practice has been questioned and has known many shifts throughout history; with the rise of artist curators and independent curators in the 60s and 70s and the current move towards more inclusive ways of exhibition making. Within this practice, authorship has always been a very important factor. Just like artist curators, blurring the lines between producer and practitioner, the algorithm as curator could also shine a new light on decision making and interpersonal relationships within curatorial practice. In addition, algorithms could form a starting point for unlearning biases and prejudices that are ingrained within the (contemporary) art world and that have upheld traditional systems for decades. I feel that it is important and maybe even urgent at this time that new ways of curatorial practice and exhibition making are being developed because of the current shift in the museological landscape where traditional, chronological, Western-oriented, and canonic narratives are being questioned. Reflecting on not only collection presentations of museums worldwide but also on the curriculum of art history for example; most works that are represented here are produced by western male artists. In both cases, works by women and especially women of color have often been left out. Algorithms question these kinds of narrative making through selection. In 2020, the idea of the almighty star curator as a gatekeeper or tastemaker seems outdated. Maybe it is time to focus on mediating and to emphasize connecting and caretaking in curatorial practice at this time.
It is very important to note that algorithms are not unbiased, but can make decisions that are not based on experience or interpersonal relationships for example. Algorithms and the systems that they operate in are designed by humans. These systems therefore can be biased based on how they are created, the data that has been used to develop and how it is used. Humans on the other hand, can easily be influenced by other, indirect or unconscious factors. This does not mean that decisions by algorithms are better than humans, but it is very interesting to explore what happens when you let an algorithm make the decisions in a curatorial setting. An algorithm could cause combinations of artists and connect artworks that would otherwise not have been selected by a human curator. Just like humans, algorithms make decisions based on judgements and predictions based on learning, machine learning in this case. In this way it processes information based on the patterns it notices.
According to Jörg Heiser, director of the Institute for Art in Context at the University of the Arts in Berlin algorithmic biases are highly problematic and based on human prejudice:
“Algorithmic biases leading to crass discrimination or even deaths – as in the case of a Pentagon operation that underestimated the number of civilian casualties of anti-ISIS airstrikes in Iraq by a staggering factor of 31 – are not just technical defects: they are based on human prejudice. Against that background, asking about the effects of algorithms on the art world seems negligible. But art is not isolated from everything else.”(*2)
In his text he cites big-data expert Cathy O’Neil on biased algorithms that amplify inequality:
“What she has seen in both finance and IT, she writes, is a ‘widespread use of imperfect models, self-serving definitions of success and growing feedback loops’, leading to algorithms that amplify social inequality or reinforce sexism and racism. For example, a Google AI
designed to police online comments rated ‘I am a gay black woman’ 87 percent toxic compared to 20 percent for ‘I am a man’.”(*3)
Algorithms could reinforce a shift in thinking regarding curatorial practice. They have the ability to challenge existing systems and the traditional ways of exhibition-making and art collecting. I feel that using algorithms to experiment with exhibition-making and collection presentation for example could help battle inequality in the art world. On the other side, it is important to stay critical of the use of algorithms because of their biased nature. Algorithmic decisions and selections are not particularly better than that of humans in this way, but it might help us to think in new ways. This short essay is hopefully just a starting point for the conversation and research on algorithms, biases, and inequality within the art world.
*1.Conversation between Kimberley Drew and Alok Vaid-Menon on Instagram Live, June 3, 2020.
*2. https://frieze.com/article/how-are-algorithms-changing-way-art-seen
*3.https://www.frieze.com/article/how-are-algorithms-changing-way-art-see