The Guerrilla Girls' top radical art campaigns
For over 30 years, the Guerrilla Girls have been fighting for the rights of women and artists of color in the art world, using plenty of humor. Here are some of their most memorable campaigns.
Guerrilla Girls' activities
For over 30 years they've been fighting against the discrimination of female artists, most often with cheeky, humorous posters. The group focuses primarily on goings-on in the USA, but Europe and Germany have long been in their sights. Here's a selection of the activities of the notorious Guerrilla Girls.
An impulse to rebel
A 1984 exhibition at MoMA in New York marked the starting point for the group's activities. The exhibition "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture" featured only 13 women out of 169 artists. The Guerrilla Girls began a count of how many women had solo exhibitions in New York, as well as how many were featured in galleries and museums. They wrote the results on posters.
Worse than they thought
Their goal was to find out what role female artists played in the 80s art scene. "Within five minutes we found that it was worse than we thought. The most influential galleries and museums presented hardly any female artists." On their first poster, they called out well-known artists for showing their work in these spaces.
Plenty of naked women, no naked men
The poster that the Guerrilla Girls designed for the Public Art Fund in New York - which was ultimately rejected - is perhaps their most well-known. In their famous "weenie count" the girls carried out a survey of works in the Met Museum in New York and found few naked men and an abundance of unclothed women. This prompted the question: "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?"
No retreat in sight
In 1990, the concept of "Multiculturalism" seemed to have become the norm, and the art world assumed much had changed for the better in terms of diversity. But in this humorous poster for "Artforum" magazine, the Guerrilla Girls made it clear that their work was not done. The reason they gave: museums and galleries had to first publicly apologize for discriminating.
Their scope widens
In the 90s, the Guerilla Girls increasingly became involved in politics, making statements on global conflicts, like the Gulf War. One of their posters read: "Many poor Americans go to the army to get an education and better life. If Bush had a real policy for public education, then who would fight his wars?" They also fought for abortion and rights for gays and lesbians.
Artistically sarcastic
In 1996, "The New Yorker" published and edition on women, which included a two-page color spread from the Guerrilla Girls in the style of ancient Greek tapestry called "How to enjoy the battle of the sexes." One of the tips was "Don’t be afraid of being lonely at the top, because you’ll never get there." The ancient relief features the girls in gorilla masks, once again showing off their wit.
An anatomically correct Oscar
"When we realized Hollywood was even worse than the art world, we had to react." Shortly before the 2002 Academy Awards, Guerrilla Girls in L.A. made a giant banner that said the Oscar is white and male and that women and people of color rarely receive awards. The media reacted to the poster and lo and behold, Halle Berry and Denzel Washington took home Oscars.
Attack on the music industry
A familiar picture: beautiful, sparsely dressed women surrounding male artists in music videos. It's occured in many videos, like the one for Robin Thicke and Pharell’s hit, "Blurred Lines." For Pharell’s exhibition "Girl" in Paris, the Guerrilla Girls turned their iconic 1989 Met poster into the following: "Do women have to be naked to get into music videos while 99% of the guys are dressed?"
Poor billionaires
Collectors, who are primarily male, white and super rich, are another favorite target of the group. For the group's 30th birthday, they made the following statement: "Dear art collector, art is sooo expensive, even for billionaires. We totally get why you can't pay all your employees a living wage."
A new era?
With Donald Trump as the new US president - one who hasn't outed himself as a feminist - the Guerrilla Girls have pledged to "resist and cause a sensation." They've already come out with their first Anti-Trump poster: "President Trump announces new commemorative months," referring to the president’s derogatory comments about women which have been dismissed as "locker room talk," and other issues.