During a panel discussion at the Getty Center on April 3, journalist and cultural commentator Jori Finkel asked artist Catherine Opie and other panelists what they would tell their 20-year-old selves if they could go back in time.
Opie said she would tell herself to simply say “yes.”
“I have a new term in my life and that’s I’m going to be the ‘House of Yes,’ because why should you be the ‘House of No,’” said Opie. “I like the idea of the ‘House of Yes,’ and I think that it gives you an enormous amount of permission, whether it be good or bad.”
The comment reflected a theme that wound its way through The Creative Mind: Women in the Arts, the first of the new series Getty Global Talks Presented with Christie’s. It was a reminder of what women in positions of leadership say ‘yes’ to—to responsibility, challenges, rewards, and also, consequentially, to sacrifice, discrimination, and constant comparison to their male counterparts. This first convening was an open forum to discuss the challenges women in leadership continue to face, and how support networks among early and mid-career arts professionals can create a better path for future leaders.
The series marks a new collaboration between Getty and Christie’s auction house, and participants were welcomed by Katherine Fleming, president and CEO of Getty and Bonnie Brennan, president of Christie’s Americas.
The morning program kicked off with a conversation between Fleming and Ann Philbin, director of the Hammer Museum who recently announced her retirement after 25 years at the institution. Philbin discussed how upon her move to Los Angeles it was assumed that any woman leader in the city was in that position because no man wanted to do it. Philbin was part of changing that dismissive view of Los Angeles through her transformation of the Hammer to an international contemporary arts destination.
Fleming added an anecdote about her arrival in LA that reinforced how Philbin and others paved a welcoming path for other women.
“I have to say within hours of the announcement that I was coming to the Getty, I was receiving emails from awesome women whom I'd never met saying, ‘Welcome to LA.’ And it was the women who lead the major cultural institutions in this city. It was totally extraordinary.”
The day included a talk and curator-led tour featuring Getty’s newest special exhibition Camille Claudel, which maps the career of this celebrated female French sculptor—the first such exhibition nearly 40 years. Curator Anne-Lise Desmas shared an overview of the exhibition with the audience, noting that she thought of women as she planned every aspect of its presentation, down to the women-designed fonts used in promotion and in the exhibition catalogue.
The day concluded with real stories about the struggles and achievements of female leadership in a frank and oftentimes vulnerable discussion among Finkel, Opie, art collector and philanthropist Komal Shah, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes CEO Leticia Rhi Buckley, and Pomona College president and new Getty trustee G. Gabrielle Starr.
The panelists described the challenges of working motherhood and how they are frequently thought of as nurturers in working environments that already require excessive emotional labor. Differences between male and female leadership were also discussed, with most agreeing that female leadership can be more inclusive, participatory, and lateral rather than top-down. Starr ended the talk with her thoughts on what she hopes to leave future leaders.
“You have to think about what it will be like for you when you are no longer there, and what you hope to have achieved for other people during your time on the path. And for me, what that has meant is looking people in the eye and saying, ‘What do you want to be possible that’s not possible now?’ and to try and lay the stones for that possibility for others.”
Future Getty Global Talks will be announced in the coming months.
