Women in Denmark want more statues of women in the art world

From current appearances, there is an unequal distribution between men and women regarding sculptures in Denmark's cityscape.

Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt has stated that he will set up a committee to develop recommendations on the issue. Once the committee has determined which women should be honoured, he said he will co-finance between 1 and 50 million Danish Kroner to erect new statues.

Pernille Taagaard, Director of the Danish Gender Museum, said that she was pleased that Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt was ready to do something about the number of statues depicting historical women: “Art is a decisive force in our understanding of ourselves. If women and girls do not have role models to look up to, they will not believe that they can be anything themselves.

There is no official record of how many statues or busts of women or men there are in Denmark. However, according to the findings made by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in September last year after researching Danish municipalities, it was revealed that only 31 of 321 busts and statues belonged to women.

Signe Hoi, an undergraduate student at the visual arts school of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, said: “It's a big problem that there are so few sculptures of women in the public sphere, because this should reflect the reality we live in. When you are a young woman, an artist and an activist, or you want to be a politician, it is nice to realise that there are so many people who have come before you and achieved this.

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