Since all artists submissions to X-treme are exhibited online and will remain so as a digital exhibition for quite a while on the e-merginG artisTS Platform anyone can follow the competition process, see the submitted works and get acquainted with some of the best entries arranged by the website curator to make visible the rich palette of the contemporary feminist artistic practice of Berlin women artists.
The digital format of the exhibition, unlike the exclusive and non-transparent artist selection and exhibition process of the Berlin state-funded public art institutions and private galleries, is much more democratic and open. In these times of extremes: like wars, pandemics, economic and political instabilities and profound environmental challenges X-treme Women Art Prize Berlin acquires a whole new dimension. With both online and offline exhibition formats the organisers and the competition juries aim to revise and push to the extremes the possibilities of art as to their utmost potential to bring system change: e.g. exhibiting more women artists, elimination of gender pay gap in contemporary art establishments, more women curators and decision-makers in charge of institutions, elimination of age limits and restrictions – to name but a few.
Most important: fair pay for fair work and fair career opportunities for all women irrespective of their nationality, age, race and social background. With the rising importance of Berlin as the European metropole for contemporary arts as it claims to be, the role of X-treme Women Art Prize Berlin is essential, because it fights for better representation of Berlin women artists. The organisers go for an expanded notion of arts, as curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, once put it, welcoming all formats and ways of artistic expression. Going for art in the times of extremes might seem superficial but one should never forget the ethical engagement of art with things around us, quoting artist Ligia Lewis and art’s potential to create emotional impact. With this in mind, all those who’re with us in this struggle for more women share in arts are in and those who act otherwise are so not, unless they revise what they stand for and realise what’s at stake.
