Guerrilla Girls (1985 - )
For almost four decades the Guerrilla Girls have been using their campaigning art to highlight sexism and inequality in the arts. The members of this anonymous feminist collective wear masks to ensure the focus remains on their message, not their appearance. They identify themselves individually by using the names of famous women artists of the past.
"We're the conscience of the art world."
The Guerrilla Girls have produced several books and many videos of their collective artworks and activism. They currently have an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, England which runs until the end of 2025.
The collective has had its issues over the years, facing internal controversies over diversity, race, class, ideology and power sharing.
The total white male iron grip on the art "world" is sad. It's only a tiny view of the world of art.
ReplyDelete😳 Gonna do some deeper dives on that 1985 MoMA exhibit that started the Guerilla Girls movement, because a quick skim revealed that nothing is ever as simple as it looks. The curator of that show was Kynaston McShine, a Trinidadian-American man who was the first Black person in the US to reach a Chief Curator position at a major art museum. Was this member of a marginalized group keeping another marginalized group down? Was it inadvertent?
ReplyDeleteMcShine rarely allowed interviews, but he said about this exhibit that "he sought to offer a snapshot of the current state of contemporary art and that any artist who wasn’t in the show should rethink his career." Whoa! God-complex or honest advice?! A slap to a whole bunch of artists!
👏 Kudos to the "Girls" for slapping back!
@ Cleora Borealis -- Most people are mixtures of oppression and privilege. Men still have male privilege even when oppressed by their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. A white woman still has white privilege even when oppressed by sex, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Being a member of an oppressed group does not give you a "free pass" to be blind about your own areas of privilege or to oppress those without such privilege.
DeleteThis was a new group for me. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard anything about them for quite a while. I'm curious to see what their exhibition at the Tate Modern looks like. I'll have to search on ye olde googler...
ReplyDeleteWhatever the controversy, I'm glad they are still shaking up the art world.