As active practitioners, we know that a thriving and complex artistic landscape is only possible when artists of different genders, sexualities, ethnic backgrounds, social classes, generations and so forth, are able to access and participate in it, and enrich it with their sensibilities and world views. In contrast to the apathy demonstrated in the selection of 2019 candidates, we wish to affirm to each other that we stand for an inclusive artistic community that finds its strength in diversity.
The flagrant exclusivity of this year’s prize candidates and its denial of not only social but also aesthetic reality (gender being just one of its glaring discriminatory categories) does not represent how we see ourselves, or our community, and raises consequential questions on how privilege might be distributed within it. The Belgian art world is still very far from having the openness we aspire towards, but we believe it is ready to recognise and reject the regressive affront this year’s selection has forced upon it.
In 2018, the art world and society at large are finally acknowledging inherited failures, and we insist on not sustaining them by assenting to the kind of agenda advanced by the BelgianArtPrize. We sign this letter to collectively and visibly inform you that we stand for a different set of values than what you’ve put forward as representing our community. We demand that Belgian public arts forums and institutions make the concerted effort to root out overt discrimination, not through nominal representation, but by acting to assimilate celebration of our diversity.
