New Club Celebrates Women in the Arts

SOPHIA GOURLEY ’19
STAFF WRITER
Trinity’s Women in the Arts Club recently began a publicity campaign on campus, by advertising with posters conveying the group’s message. The club is dedicated to exploring feminism within the world of art. The Women in the Arts Club offers a collaborative space to discuss and explore topics of art, femininity, and related issues. Founder Sasha Gluzman ’16 describes the purpose of the club as an effort to “create an opportunity for the female artists of Trinity’s campus to showcase their work through exhibitions, and engage within a feminist-driven art community which strives to express female self-identity towards the rest of the campus working towards a more gender-neutral environment.”
In the field of art, where women are underrepresented, it is important to clubs like this to bring awareness about the issues that face artists who are women.
According to Washington D.C.’s National Museum of Women in the Arts, 51% of visual artists today are women, but only 28% of museum solo exhibitions spotlighted women in eight selected museums throughout the 2000s. This statistic demonstrates that although there is a strong presence of female artists in the world of art exhibitions, their work does not receive the same amount of attention as the artwork of men in the same field.
Sasha Gluzman founded the club after a semester abroad in Paris, where she worked with renowned artist Doris Kloster and was inspired to spread the love of art. As a photographer and curator, Kloster primarily focuses on portraits. Some of her past works include ecclectic photography exhibitions: “She Views Herself” is her most recent project. Kloster created the exhibit in 2012 to acknowledge International Women’s Day. This exhibit has been displayed several times and features self-portraits by female artists from countries all around the world, and connected them together as part of a larger overarching theme about the arts and womanhood.
Gluzman says that spending time with professional artist Kloster helped her understand her role as a woman and an artist. “She was my primary inspiration for starting this club, in order to promote feminism and gender-equality through art”.
Trinity’s Women in the Arts Club is a substantial addition to the art atmosphere of Campus.
Any members of the Trinity College community, regardless of gender, are welcome to help plan and organizing the Women in the Arts Club’s exhibition in April. Any female artists interested in showcasing their work are reminded that in addition to visual art, other art forms including, but not limited to, poetry, dance and music. For anyone interested in planning the event or submitting work for the exhibition should attend the group’s weekly meetings, which are held on Thursdays, and should contact Sasha Gluzman at aleksandra.gluzman@trincoll.edu