Spanish nonprofit MAV develops software to combat gender disparity in museums

The Spanish nonprofit Mujeres en las Artes Visuales (MAV) has developed a software tool to help museums monitor and correct gender imbalances in their collections. Founded in 2009, MAV brings together over 500 female professionals in the arts, including artists, critics, curators, and gallerists, with the goal of promoting women's visibility and fighting gender discrimination. The software, set to launch in 2020, will provide detailed analysis of a museum's collection by gender, track spending on acquisitions of works by women versus men, and measure the exhibition space allocated to female artists. It will also offer tailored recommendations for improvement. MAV president María José Magaña told El País that the aim is not to denounce museums but to learn together and improve. The initiative responds to persistent gender disparities in the art world: a 2018 report by curator Marijke Steedman for the Freelands Foundation (founded by Elisabeth Murdoch) found that in 2017 only 22% of solo exhibitions at major London museums were dedicated to women artists, an 8% drop from 2016, and only 28% of artists represented by top London commercial galleries were women, a 29% decline from 2016.