GIRLS | MUSEUM

We are born into an already-constructed world. We each enter with new eyes into a culture thathas already been shaped and structured based on the desires and power of others. Historical artmuseums are charged with preserving and interpreting the tangible evidence of a civilization’scultural trajectory and artistic achievement. The artworks they display have overwhelmingly beenmade, collected and contextualized by men. On the walls of their hushed galleries, there is no lackof depictions of women on display – mothers, wives, prostitutes, artist’s models and muses, allseen through the eyes of male artists.

Girls | Museum​ takes the viewer through the historical art collection of the MdbK/Museum of FineArt​ Leipzig, guided by a group of girls, ages 7 to 19. ​Moving from artwork to artwork, century tocentury, the girls tell us what they see​. Art is typically the reserve of anointed experts and girlsrarely take or are given a central and unfettered place to speak from. From imaginative leaps ofstorytelling to curt pronouncements, from gender fluidity to power, inequality, precarity and war, Girls | Museum​, in its quiet way, calls for questioning basic assumptions of what and who we value.