Feminist Art Histories and Masculinity: Reading the Mainstream Art Museum

This thesis investigates the impact feminist art histories have had on mainstream artmuseums. The key finding of this thesis is that masculinity, or the traditional heteromasculinebox, continues to impact the mainstream art museum. The research isapproached through two case studies: Tate Modern, London, and the National PortraitGallery, also in London. Each case study is conceptualised as comprising three,interconnecting and overlapping spheres: the organisational sphere, the curatorial sphereand the physical sphere.This thesis finds that, alongside the overwhelming impact of masculinity, structuralfaults in the collection, caused by historic bias, have created obstacles for curators.However, feminist art historical approaches are being implemented within the curatorialsphere in order to attempt to fill gaps and to correct biases. Although within theorganisational sphere there is evidence of a feminist legacy, masculinity continues tohave a large impact on experiences within physical art spaces, leading to questionsabout whether the actions museums are taking to diversify their collections is enough.The thesis argues that as some gaps in collections are addressed, others are beingignored and continue to grow. This is most evident in the case of transgender narratives.Despite the rise in the number of women artists and/or artists of colour, these artists arenot given the same space as artists accepted within the art historical canon. This causesa lack of equivalency of scale between artists. Additionally, there are often specificspaces and times given to the display of marginalised artists. For example, the thesisfinds that often the interpretation of an artist’s queerness is limited to certain spaceswithin the gallery, or confined to special events and displays.Ultimately this thesis contributes to the growing field of queer feminist art histories aswell as a queer reading of museums, while also exploring transgender and gender nonconformingnarratives in art spaces.