40 years of the Guerrilla Girls






Photo Credit Lois Greenfield, 
The Guerrilla Girls DW.com 2017

Since the 1980s, a female artist group known as the Guerrilla Girls began a lifelong pursuit of political art as activism. In May of 1984, the MoMA ran an exhibit titled An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, heavily favoring male artists, and the show drew a group of protesters outside on opening night. To add insult to injury, the curator, Kynaston McShine, stated in interviews that“any artist who wasn’t in the show should rethink ‘his’ career.” (Tate) A year later, the Guerrilla Girls formed, intending to raise questions in the art world by stating the facts surrounding art theory and practice. The artistic approach of the Guerrilla Girls was to remain anonymous and work collaboratively using street art and demonstrations. Their medium of posters, signage, and prints relied on sharing statistics and asking bold questions, presenting the information to see what people did with it. 


The political goal of interrogating mainstream art theory is to disrupt the historical patterns of oppression in art and cultural history. The work of the Guerrilla Girls believes that art appreciation should elevate the discourse instead of flattening the narrative and a cultural understanding of art. The art collectors, board members, and significant art houses hold extreme wealth and power over artists and control art exposure in public institutions. 

The 20th Century brought three waves of feminism and the prolific work of pioneering women artists like Alice Neel, Elaine Kooning, Louise Bourgeois, and Lee Krasner. Their essential contributions forever changed art, as did the discourse brought on by the philosophy of the Guerrilla Girls. For 40 years, the Guerrilla Girls have debated wealth's control of art and its systematic elimination of women’s art and artists of color in mainstream art. Feminist philosophy in art theory reveals that expanding the discourse and number of female artists with work on view is ever so important and necessary. The more prevalent and nuanced the dialogue becomes, combined with the growing presence of female artists in practice and discussed in critique, the easier it will be to dismantle the canons that censor it.
 
1989, Guerrilla Girls. Tate Modern


References


The Art Assignment. (2014, November 4). Complain creatively. | The Guerrilla Girls | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios. [Video]. YouTube. (08:54)

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