Guerrilla Girls - Public Art Essay - Taylor Martin
The Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous social justice protest group founded in 1985 that is still going strong today. Their main goal is to “fight discrimination against women artists and artists of color in the art world”.1 As time has gone on, they have expanded their protests out to other social issues and other creative fields outside of the visual arts, such as ones in regard to gender, sexual identity, and issues within film making, directing, and more. They are known as the Guerrilla Girls due to their “‘guerrilla’ tactics to expose gender and racial imbalances within contemporary cultural institutions.”2 The term “guerrilla” is often used in reference to guerrilla warfare, which are tactics that involve avoiding head-on confrontation with the enemy. In the usual meaning enemies refer to other armies, while with the Guerrilla Girls that means contemporary cultural institutions like museums, libraries, art galleries, archives, and more. They garner these institutions attention through provocative posters, “billboards, performances, protests, lectures, installations, and limited-edition prints”.3 While all of this work is being done, the protestors don the masks of gorillas, tying the word guerrilla into their public image alongside their rebel tactics.
The Guerrilla Girls “grew out of a demonstration in 1985 by a group of women artists protesting an exhibition titled An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture.”1 This exhibition in New York grabbed this groups attention due to the drastic difference in the number of male artists, female artists, and artists of color in the show. There were 148 male artists, thirteen women, and zero artists of color. The show’s curator also said, “that any artist who wasn't in the show should rethink ‘his’ career.”1 Which clearly shows the lack of attention or care for women artists in the art world. Their protesting at this show, however, drew little to no attention to them so they set out to make a name for themselves. Today, many of their art works of protest are conspicuous and renowned. Once they were tied only to the streets of New York, now they “maintain an online presence and present public lectures and performances around the world.”2
Figure 3 Guerrilla Girls, How Many Women Had One-person Exhibitions at NYC Museums Last Year?, poster, 2015.
Three main pieces will be formally addressed, one of them being "Dearest Art Collector'' (1986). (Fig 1.) This is one of the first pieces the Guerrilla Girls made after forming their group. It reads: “Dearest art collector, it has come to our attention that your collection, like most, does not contain enough art by women. We know that you feel terrible about this and will rectify the situation immediately. All our love, Guerrilla Girls''. This was a poster that was mass produced and sent to well-known art collectors throughout New York. It is screenprint on paper and has dimensions of 560 by 430 millimeters, or about twenty-two by seventeen inches. It takes the likeness of a large, handwritten letter, and is written in “curly, girlie handwriting on a pink [back]ground; a drawing of a flower with a sad face heads it while the Girls’ PO Box address is printed at the foot.”4 This piece was copied and printed fifty times in a portfolio titled Guerrilla Girls Talk Back, the one shown in Figure one is the twelfth edition owned by Tate Modern.
The layout and style of this poster helps to push a theme of feminism and feminine power. The light pink background is seen, in America, as a girls color while blue is for boys. Curly, dainty handwriting is often associated with femininity, along with a soft, polite mannerism. The drawn flower at the top also plays into the theme of femininity since flowers are often labeled as something women like and desire. All of these characteristics of this poster and the typical meaning behind them are completely flipped once the letter is read. The letter itself also contains polite words and emotional comfort, yet knowing the source of this letter turns these words from soft and sincere, to stern, blunt, and sarcastic. With this hidden edge written in the words, the face value softness of this poster is turned sour. This creative and clever piece leaves a much larger impact due to the contrast with the soft style and the sharp intention behind it.
“Dearest Art Collector” is a very provoking art piece, initially given to art collectors in New York to get them to recognize the disparity between male artists and female artists within their collections. The sarcasm within the letter is rather clear, tied along with the visuality and wording of the piece being what is seen as feminine in American society, further pushing the biting sarcasm. As The Art Story states, “This send up of femininity is aimed at the expectation that, even when presenting a serious complaint, women should do so in a socially acceptable 'nice' way.”3 Going along with this expectation of appealing to feelings further elicits the power in which this letter has. The Guerrilla Girls are known for their sarcasm and bluntness. They do so in a way that is clever, poking at the systemic sexism and lowly expectations that are set for women, in doing so they draw the attention they want to get their point across, and their views heard. All the while pushing against societal norms while still playing into them. Sending these letters directly to the target audience further proves the strong standing this group has and the confidence they imbue to do what is right to move forward in society. The Guerrilla Girls showing this confidence and forwardness may influence other women to do the same; to stand up for themselves and make their voices heard.
Figure 1 Guerrilla Girls, Dearest Art Collector, poster, 1986.
The next piece is titled "Do women have to be naked to get Into the Met. Museum?" (1989). (Fig 2.) This work is one of the Guerrilla Girls more popular pieces, which garnered it to get reprinted as posters by the group in 2005 and 2012, with its initial release being in 1989. It was commissioned by the Public Art Fund in New York to be a billboard, but was eventually rejected. The group decided to use this piece on New York City buses. As stated before, the poster was well renowned, that is because of its “bold, eye-catching graphic design, which includes a reproduction of the female nude figure from French artist Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's painting Grande Odalisque (1814, in the collection of Musée du Louvre, Paris) donning a gorilla mask.”5 The piece has a chromatic cadmium yellow background, with the aforementioned female nude figure in black and white, with a magenta fabric bunched beneath her and a phallic shaped peacock fan in her hand. There is bold black text on the top of the work, donning the title of the piece itself. Below that, to the right of the figure, a statistic was written. It reads: “Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.” This is written in a smaller text compared to the title, with keywords, such as 5%, artists, 85%, and nudes, being highlighted in a similar shade of magenta as the fabric. Below this statistic, in an even smaller font, is the group's PO Box address along with their name. The dimensions of the posters are 280 by 710 millimeters or about eleven by twenty-eight inches.
“Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” is a piece that caught the eye of the public, and for good reason. It is a heavily thought provoking and enlightening piece. The Guerrilla Girls are known for providing and showcasing statistics that reveal the evident imbalances within the art world with the intent to embarrass the ones at fault; and this piece is a perfect example of that. The Art Story states that “The Guerrilla Girls took the project forward on their own, renting advertising space on New York City buses ‘until the bus company canceled our lease, saying that the image, based on Ingres's famous Odalisque, was too suggestive and that the figure appeared to have more than a fan in her hand.’ “3 The more likely reason that the bus company canceled their lease would be because they found the poster to be too aggressive, especially since it was targeted towards such a major institution. The Guerrilla Girls however, found it to be just what was needed. This piece helps to unify the voices of women, specifically in the art world, and allows for the community to have a steppingstone towards a progressive future. New York being such a populated area with many museums and art shows to boot, allows for this steppingstone to reach a larger, louder audience.
This piece is extremely eye catching due to its bright yellow background, peculiar nude female figure with a gorilla mask, and the large, bold text of the title. The bright colors used allow for it to be easily noticed out on the streets, specifically plastered onto public buses. With them being on a moving vehicle, it must be eye catching for someone to quickly notice, before it departs just as quickly. The nude figure may be recognizable to informed artists, therefore garnering their attention, the adorned gorilla mask piquing the viewers curiosity due to the change and peculiarity of the mask. A gorilla mask on a nude figure will even draw the attention of those who do not even know the origins of the woman, making the piece intriguing for both potential onlookers. If those two eye-catching points of the poster aren’t interesting enough, then surely the audacious title will. This piece is all about grabbing someone’s attention and keeping it to allow for the statistic provided to be absorbed. With the astounding popularity of the piece, it must have been a success.
Figure 2 Guerrilla Girls, Do women have to be naked to get Into the Met. Museum?, poster, 1989.
The final work is "How Many Women Had One-person Exhibitions At NYC Museums Last Year?" (2015). (Fig 3.) This artwork was first made in 1985 (left) and was later redone in 2015 (right) to show the change, or rather lack thereof, there has been in the past thirty years in how many women had one-person exhibitions at New York City museums. The piece has a color palette of black, white, and a stark red. The piece is split evenly in half, the left side containing a white background with black text, with the enlarged red and circled date of 1985 in the bottom right corner. The right consists of a black background with white lettering, the enlarged red date reading 2015; it is composed the same way as the red text of “1985”. The text on both sides consists of the piece's title as the headline in a large font while the names of the museums lay below in a smaller font. Each of the four museums listed on each side have a number to their right, indicating the answer to the title's question. On the right side however, the numbers stated on the left are repeated, yet this time they are crossed out with a red line and replaced with the updated red numbers to match the statistics for 2015. The dimensions for this poster are ten by twenty-six inches.
The original 1985 piece was most certainly strong on its own; it made a very sound argument while clearly expressing the issue. Adding onto this piece twenty years later makes it not only clever, but it makes the message of this piece even more powerful. The contrast within the poster makes it striking but also concise, easily dividing each side to show the viewer they are separate counts. Of course, the large red date stamped on each side helps to clarify what the layout and color scheme implies.
“How Many Women Had One-person Exhibitions At NYC Museums Last Year?” is a work by the Guerrilla Girls that shows the saddening truth of how little change there has been in the art world for women artists. Not to say there has not been any progression, for example the Guerrilla Girls made another poster titled “At Last! Museums Will No Longer Discriminate Women And Minority Artists” which states that an act titled the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988 will not federally fund any institution that discriminates in any of its operations. The Guerrilla Girls finish this new act off with stating “We encourage women and artists of color to contact their favorite museums. THEY NEED YOU NOW!” While this is a definite step in the right direction, it seems that the museums of Guggenheim, Metropolitan, Modern, and Whitney did not quite get the memo, even after having twenty-seven years to figure it out. This very minimal change goes to show how deep rooted this discrimination is, and that there is likely a way around this act that these museums have found to continue to pursue the close-minded path they are on. This sad reality goes to show despite the immense amount of work the Guerrilla Girls and others like them have put in, there is still a long way to go to reach a favorable level of change. Seeing these disheartening statistics, especially on the world wide web, will hopefully push this movement into an even higher gear and put even more heat on realities such as this. Heat brings about change, and change has been long overdue.
Figure 4 Guerrilla Girls, At Last! Museums Will No Longer Discriminate Against Women And Minority Artists., poster, 1988.
The Guerrilla Girls have been called many things: protestors, disruptors, motivators, activists, and more. While these all are true, there is one that not many seem to recognize them as: critics. It is safe to say that this group is analytical enough, expository enough, and condemnatory enough to be considered critics. But as Roberta Smith, a New York Times critic stated, they’re “not art critics; they’re social critics.”6 They point fingers at those who do not feature or talk about women artists or artists of color, as one art critic said they “were rude; they named names and they printed statistics. They embarrassed people. In other words, they worked.”3 They worked for the voices of minority artists, they criticized those who opposed them or were the roadblocks to success for these artists.
These art pieces allow for everyone to see the disparity in the art world between white men and the rest of the art world populace. The purpose of the Guerrilla Girls pieces is not only to bring about embarrassment and recognition on behalf of the contemporary cultural institutions, but to also bring about a change as a result of this embarrassment and recognition of failure and bigotry. And if not to motivate the art critics, curators, and more, then to motivate the people, the artists, to advocate for themselves with a platform that the Guerrilla Girls helped to form. The Guerrilla Girls reflect the desires and sufferings of the minority groups in the art community. This reflection has the power to uncover disparities, discrimination and corruption
which will bring about recognition and motivation; to inspire the offenders to change their ways and to encourage the oppressed to push the movement forward.
Bibliography
American, Guerrilla Girls, and Publisher Guerrilla Girls American. “Guerrilla Girls: Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get into the Met. Museum?” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 1, 1989. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/849438.
Guerrilla girls archive (Getty Research Institute). Accessed October 20, 2023. https://www.getty.edu/research/special_collections/notable/guerrilla_girls.html.
“Guerrilla Girls: Artist Profile.” NMWA, May 29, 2020. https://nmwa.org/art/artists/guerrilla-girls/#:~:text=The%20Guerrilla%20Girls%20are%20known,imbalances%20within%20contemporary%20cultural%20institutions.
Ryzik, Melena. “The Guerrilla Girls, after 3 Decades, Still Rattling Art World Cages.” The New York Times, August 5, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/arts/design/the-guerrilla-girls-after-3-decades-still-rattling-art-world cages.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20Guerrilla%20Girls%20are%20not,disinterest%20in%20issues%20of%20quality.&text=KAHLO%20How%20can%20you%20really,the%20voices%20within%20the%20culture%3F.
Tate. “‘Dearest Art Collector’, Guerrilla Girls, 1986.” Tate, January 1, 1986. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-dearest-art-collector-p78802.
“The Guerrilla Girls Art, Bio, Ideas.” The Art Story. Accessed October 20, 2023. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/guerrilla-girls/.
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