Föreningen JA! // The YES! Association

The YES! Association was initiated by the artists Line S Karlström, Johanna Gustavsson, Malin Arnell Anna Linder and Fia-Stina Sandlund.

The four of us were brought together in February 2005 by the art historian Eva Hallin, for a conversation about “feminist strategies of resistance”, in preparation for the production of the catalogue accompanying the exhibition Art Feminism – Strategies and effects in Sweden from the 1970s up to the present day. This exhibition was organized by the art historian Barbro Werkmäster and Riksutställningar, Dunkers Kulturhus, Liljevalchs Konsthall – all institutions funded by the Swedish state.

With this meeting as a starting point and through our following conversations we began, as a group, to reflect over the boundaries of the exhibition. We agreed that the exhibition Art Feminism was an important and valuable, but also very sensitive initiative. A lot was at stake.

We were critical of how the preparations of the exhibition were carried out. To start with we were concerned that the hidden agenda was, in fact, that Liljevalchs Konsthall and Dunkers Kulturhus needed to improve their bad reputations in regard to gender representation in their exhibition programs and acquisitions. Furthermore, the participating artists would receive only a minimal artist fee, which was not a good sign either. Many of the participating contemporary artists work with performance or process oriented projects, but, with only one exception, their works were represented in the show merely through documentation. Thus, the message was that there really is no budget for showing contemporary feminist art in Sweden.

Another problem was that since the beginning of the preparations, the list of participating artists has not included artists of any other ethnic background than “Swedish”. The curatorial group was well informed by queer theory, but nowhere did they consider an intersectional perspective, which according to us, is the most appropriate analytic tool to use to analyse power structures and hierarchies.

We regarded the plan to squeeze together approximately 120 of Sweden’s most trendsetting artists and categorise their work under different themes, as belittling. Works with a political force risked becoming annexed brands lending their brilliance to the establishment. We felt that the curators of Art Feminism presented singular feminist art pieces but were not working informed by a more complex understanding of feminism as a political force. In our opinion they failed to think beyond the formal aspect of the show on how feminism could be implemented throughout the entire production of the show and thereby also practiced. Additionally, we felt that the exhibition through its focus on the 1970’s, risked turning out to be a “safe” exhibition; an exhibition pointing backwards. We shared a wish of being the artists pointing forward and we wanted to see the feminist discussion of today included in the exhibition.

In the light of our brave, strong and fantastic predecessors and with the support of all brilliant feminist actors within the contemporary art scene, we decided that it was time to help Sweden’s public art institutions to tackle their inequality problems by offering them to sign our Equal Opportunities Agreement that we eventually set up for the occasion.

Were the institutions behind the exhibition Art Feminism (and other art institutions that in theory claim to be against discrimination) ready to practice what they preached? Were they ready for a legal agreement – to take responsibility for their expressed wish for equality and sign a binding contract?

That is the story. And as the saying goes, the rest is history.