Is the Future Female?  

The rallying cry “The Future is Female” has re-emerged since its origins in second wave feminism, demanding a status check among today’s museum professionals. The pronounced uptick in exhibitions, museum acquisitions, and research related to pre-modern women artists has been galvanizing, but whether this direction will continue as robustly and precipitously as it has in the past decade remains to be seen. How might the “woman question” adapt to accommodate broader approaches to the historical awareness of gender identity and presentation? What could gender parity look like in museum galleries and exhibitions, and is that outcome the collective goal? How might this apply on a global scale in our consideration of the pre-modern context? This talk hopes to raise more questions than answers as we navigate our path forward.  

Andaleeb Badiee Banta

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Dr. Andaleeb Badiee Banta is the Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. A specialist in Renaissance and Baroque European art, Dr. Banta has held curatorial positions at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College and the Baltimore Museum of Art. She has particular interest in the material and social aspects of art, and in demonstrating the pervasive contributions of women to the arts of pre-modern Europe. Her work has been supported with fellowships and grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.