Role of women artists in the presentation of contemporary Ukrainian art at the Venice Biennale: gender analysis

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal the phenomenon of modern Ukrainian art from the perspective of identifying the role and weight of the female artist in the exhibition projects of the Venice Biennale from 2001 to 2024. The research methodology relies on a gender approach to analyse sex-disaggregated statistics and assess gender parity. The research methods are: comparative method – to identify differences in the representation of female and male exponents; historical method – to demonstrate the evolution of society's attitude towards a woman artist; biographical method – to find out the main stages of the work of female artists; art analysis – to study the features of the exhibited works; generalisation method – for summarising the results of the research. The scientific novelty. For the first time, an analysis of the exhibition projects of the Venice Biennale was carried out for the purpose of exhibiting the works of Ukrainian women artists there, the specifics of the presentation of the works of women artists were determined, and an assessment of gender parity in the analysed projects was carried out. Conclusions. The creativity of women artists in the exhibition projects of the Venice Biennale is an important component of the presentation of modern Ukrainian art at the international level. Since 2011, the share of women among the exhibitors of the Biennale has remained stable and amounts to an average of 40%. Gender parity was observed only once – in 2007. The peak value of the participation of female artists from Ukraine is fixed in 2022 (75%), which generally corresponds to the trend caused by the main curatorial project aimed at the rehabilitation of women's art. In the course of the research, the most represented Ukrainian artist in Venice was discovered – the works of Zhanna Kadyrova were exhibited at the Biennale in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022, and 2024.