Letter signed by 2,000 gallerists, artists, curators and administrators comes after allegations against Artforum co-publisher

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

More than 150 artists, curators and museum directors, have written a letter denouncing sexual harassment and abuses of power in the art world.

The letter comes in the wake of separate allegations against Knight Landesman, co-publisher of leading arts journal Artforum, who resigned on Wednesday hours after a lawsuit was filed in New York accusing him of sexual harassment.

It reads: “We are gallerists, artists, writers, editors, curators, directors, arts administrators, assistants, and interns — workers of the art world — and we have been groped, undermined, harassed, infantilised, scorned, threatened, and intimidated by those in positions of power who control access to resources and opportunities.”

We’ll stay silent no more over sexual harassment in the art world | Letters Read more

The signatories of the letter, published in the Guardian on Monday, include American photographer Cindy Sherman, Turner prize winner Helen Marten, British art dealer and gallery owner Sadie Coles and Cuban-American artist Coco Fusco.

The letter, which 2,000 more people have put their names to and which will be shared on social media platforms using the hashtag #notsurprised, says that “abuse of power comes as no surprise” and that the request of sexual favours in exchange for career advancement was commonplace.

The letter continues: “The resignation of one publisher from one high-profile magazine does not solve the larger, more insidious problem: an art world that upholds inherited power structures at the cost of ethical behaviour. Similar abuses occur frequently and internationally on a large scale within this industry.

“We have been silenced, ostracised, apathologized, dismissed as ‘overreacting’, and threatened when we have tried to expose sexually and emotionally abusive behaviour. We will be silenced no longer.”

Sarah McCrory, director of the Centre for Contemporary Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, said the letter came about after women in the sector began to have conversations about sexual harassment via the Whatsapp messenger app.



She says: “It’s been a very intense three days but it’s been also a heartening exercise. It began from discussions on social media between colleagues initially about how to react to the Artforum situation. We were concerned about how it was being dealt with and about accountability.”

Women, trans and gender non-conforming people began to share experiences with each other but McCrory said the focus has been on taking action. “We were quite quick to make sure that we focused on the letter and focused on harnessing the outpouring of the ‘me too’ hashtag,” she said.

Art writer Valerie Werder, who is one of the women named in the lawsuit against Landesman, got involved in the letter’s creation after being disappointed by Artforum’s handling of the Landesman allegations.

New theatre industry guidelines to be drawn up after harassment claims Read more

She said: “After the news of that broke, Artforum’s response was something that I couldn’t support. It wasn’t enough and I was very disappointed as it seemed to absolve the responsibility I thought Artforum should take.

“What started as an original group of people to discuss this specific case became a really strong collective of voices around the world that wanted to make active change, stand up for victims and show acts of solidarity.”

She added that choosing to speak out was hard but the group of women have helped. “Suddenly we were over 100 strong and I felt this incredible amount of support from an international and very diverse community of women and gender non-confirming people,” she said.



Emma Astner, co-founder of the Koppe Astner gallery in Glasgow, said they hoped the letter would get people talking.



“The issue is incredibly complex and has many layers but the only way to start to address it is to start a conversation and that’s what I believe the letter will do,” she said.

She added: “There isn’t one solution because it’s a problem that’s embedded in society in many different ways so we have to fix it from many different angles. The only way to do that is to talk about it.”