It’s no news that we live in a white straight patriarcal inequal society, but what you might not know is that there is another place where females are also left behind: The Art world. Unfortunately, lots of female artists don’t get their time to shine or to have a minimum recognition on their work. So, the Art atmosphere belong to men? Aren’t women good enough? The answer is: we don’t get a lot of access or oportunity to make it as “important” and “remarkable” as male artists. But how can we ever change that? Here is where the Guerrilla Girls enter in scene.
Image Source: Guerrilla Girls
The Guerrilla Girls define themselves as a feminist group of activists who uses pictures and humor to expose gender/ethnic bias and also corruption in art, movie, theater, music, politics, etc. Their move is to create posters, banners or flayers with informations about inequality in the art that must be seen. They’re involved in projects, interventions and exhibitions in not only art galleries but also in universities, for exemple.
The group was born in 1985 after many protests in the Museum of Modern Art in New York because of the exposition about recent painting and sculpture, in which of the 165 artists exposed, only 13 were women. They filled the streets with several flyers and posters about how female artists are despised in art galleries.
Image Source: Guerrilla Girls
They advocate an intersecional feminism that fights discrimination and supports human rights for all people and all genders. Their data often compares the disparity between white and black women to show that besides chauvinism there’s also racism. They discuss subjects in different art spaces (visual arts, movie, theater) and in politics; for instance, topics like inequal salaries, the percentage how many women artists are exposed in certain art galleries/museums and they also give us names of the art critics who don’t talk enough about women.
Image Source: Guerrilla Girls/Instagram
(The image is a protest against the misogynistic Jair Bolsonaro during the elections of 2018 in Brazil, the scream of the oposition was “Ele não”, which means Not Him (for presidency.))
The Guerrilla did projects in several places around the world like Iceland, Istambul, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, São Paulo and Shangai. The group is anonymous, and when they attend public meetings, they use gorilla masks for ortho-phonetics misunderstanding and present themselves with pseudonyms of past female artists (Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz were the first members).
They try to remind us that every art is political and that it’s good to think why something is on the wall when it comes to art galleries. Why is this piece being displayed instead of other pieces made by women? We need to reflect upon it and demand more equality. Support your female artists gang.
For more information about the Guerrilla Girls you should visit their website and follow them on social media.