About Our Project

—— A Passion for Diversity ——

Project Sources

To investigate possible patterns and trends exist in the representation of 20th-century-born artists in the collections of four major U.S. museums, and how does the diversity among these artists reflect the zeitgeist of their time, our project draws on the dataset Diversity of Artists in Major U.S. Museums published in PLOS ONE. This dataset provides information of the demographic composition—gender, ethnicity, regional origin, and the birth decade—of 10,000 artists in 18 major U.S. museums. Its large-scale, data-driven approach reveals the historical underrepresentation of women and non-white artists. Their study is essential for assessing past biases in museum acquisitions and uncovering patterns in artists’ demographic representation over time.

Before interpreting our data, we critically examine the potential silences in our dataset. All statements about the artists’ demographics in the dataset are limited to individual and identifiable artists, meaning that the coverage of the data can vary from different museums. Since the dataset is restricted to known sources, it may not reflect the diversity of artists fully and authentically. More information about the data can be found on Our Data page. Furthermore, as we centered our research scope on 20th-century born artists, we extracted data from four major museums known for their modern and contemporary collections——Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art.

Alongside analyzing the dataset, we read various peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on the inclusion of marginalized artists in museums, more information regarding our sources can be found on our Sources page. One example was an interview with Luis Pérez Oramas, former curator at MoMA, who reflects on the institution’s evolving approach to representing Latin American artists and the challenges of contextualizing these works within a predominantly Eurocentric framework. This insight into power dynamics in museum collections guided us to adopt an intersectional perspective in our narratives. Recognizing how race, ethnicity, and gender intersect to shape artists’ experiences of underrepresentation and privilege, we have a more pertinent evaluation on targeted museums’ current practice on diversification. Our emphasis on intersectionality intends to amplify marginalized artists’ voices and demonstrates our commitment to exposing power imbalances and fostering equitable representation for all.

Processing Our Data

The dataset was initially extracted using RStudio, as the original research article provided reproducible R code to collect and visualize the data. We began by thoroughly analyzing the raw data to assess its validity. To ensure consistency, we standardized artist names, excluded non-identifiable entries such as “N/A” to maintain data integrity, and resolved discrepancies. For visualization, we used Tableau to highlight disparities in representation, offering clear insights into diversity—or its lack thereof. The data was filtered and organized for specific analyses to effectively represent artist demographics in U.S. museum collections across various dimensions, including gender, ethnicity, regional origin, and birth decade.

Presentation

This project was created using WordPress, an online content management system, and is hosted on UCLA’s Humspace portal—a website hosting service designed specifically for students in the Digital Humanities Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.

We chose WordPress for its flexibility, which allows our team to design a user-friendly, visually appealing, and well-organized website. Its features enable us to make accessibility-focused edits and formatting adjustments. Thanks to insights and instructions from UCLA’s Disabilities and Computing Program, we applied principles of Accessible Web Design to enhance the user experience. This includes optimizing color schemes, adjusting font sizes, and strategically bolding text for improved readability on digital screens.

For the aesthetic vision, we adopted a clean layout featuring a reddish-orange theme inspired by a color-blind-friendly palette (Orange/Blue spectrum). This color contrasts effectively with the beige background, enhancing readability and clarity. The beige background, with its softer brightness compared to white, minimizes eye strain during prolonged reading sessions. The website layout ensures that readers can easily engage with data visualizations, timelines, and interactive elements. By hovering over or clicking sections, users can seamlessly explore more details.

In keeping with our theme and our project name Frame by Frame, we have also created a golden frame logo to represent our website, which when clicked on will automatically redirect you to this home page.

We hope the reddish-orange theme conveys warmth and joy as you navigate our website!