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From right: Collector Komal Shah and artists Samia Halaby, Joan Semmel, and Tschabalala Self at Semmel’s studio. Photo by Elle Pérez
There’s a story that Komal Shah likes to tell. In 2023, the former tech executive hosted an exhibition of her art collection in New York. All 84 artists featured in the show, titled “Making Their Mark,” happened to be women. During an event for students, a young boy raised his hand.
“He said, ‘I didn’t know women artists could be this good,’” Shah recounts to me, wide-eyed, over coffee at the 1 Hotel in Miami Beach in December. “How did our education system teach this boy that the only good artists are men?”
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From March 5–7, Shah’s foundation will host the Making Their Mark Forum, a gathering of museum leaders, artists, market figures, educators, and students in Washington, DC. The event coincides with the latest presentation of Shah’s collection, which has been traveling to museums around the country since its New York debut, at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (until July 26).
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“The powers that be—collectors, museums—always need to be pushed because they still control and are still largely discriminating without even understanding that that’s what they are doing,” says the 93-year-old artist Joan Semmel, who will speak at the forum.
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