Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous group of radical feminist artists established in New York City in 1985. Known for their posters, books, billboards, appearances and other creative forms of culture jamming, the group aims to expose discrimination and corruption.
Trained as visual artists, Guerrilla Girls have invented a unique combination of content, text and snappy graphics that present feminist viewpoints in a humorous manner. They try to draw in viewers with their comic hook, help them to think about the issues, and encourage them to change their minds.
Guerrilla Girls want to reclaim the “F word" (feminism). They want people to embrace the tenets of feminism, which include equal opportunity, the end of gender-based discrimination, equal access to education, freedom from sexual exploitation and abuse, reproductive rights education, and human rights for women everywhere.
They are famous for wearing gorilla masks in public and taking the names of deceased female artists as pseudonyms.
The Guerrilla Girls formed in 1985 out of a concern of the underrepresentation of women in modern art. A few women had attended “An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and discovered that only 13 of the 169 featured artists were women. The ratio of artists of color was even smaller, none of whom were female either.
The Guerrilla Girls chose their name “guerrilla” because they ". . . wanted to play with the fear of guerrilla warfare, to make people afraid of who [they] might be and where [they] might strike next”. They call themselves “girls” instead of “women” to reclaim the belittling usage of the word and to shock and upset people, particularly other feminist groups. When the group looked for a disguise, they decided to wear gorilla masks after an original member allegedly misspelled “Guerrilla” as “Gorilla” at an early meeting.
They began by designing posters that decried the gender and racial imbalance of artists represented in galleries and museums. These first posters appeared on the streets of New York. Over the years, they have expanded their activism to examine Hollywood and the film industry, popular culture, gender stereotyping, and corruption in the art world.
Members of the original group contend that no one knows their identities, except for some of their mothers and/or partners. They have never revealed the number of members in the group, implying that there are many Guerrilla Girls, or at least Guerrilla Girl supporters, all over the world.
In 2004, the Guerrilla Girls received the Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism from the College Art Association.
In 1989, the Guerrilla Girls came into the spotlight for their poster which asked the question, "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?" They designed the poster after conducting what they called a "weenie count" at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. They counted the number of naked males and naked females in the artwork there, along with the number of female artists in the collection. They found that less than 5% of the artists in the Met's modern art sections were women, yet 85% of the nudes were female.
When their protest design was rejected by the Public Art Fund, the Guerrilla Girls decided to run it as an advertisement that was plastered all over the New York City buses. Since, the poster has been exhibited all over the world and reproduced in a great number of geography, art history and women's studies textbooks.
In 2005, the Guerrilla Girls went back to the Met to do a "weenie recount". They found that there were even fewer women artists shown at the Met but the number of naked males in the artwork has increased.
Attack against film industry
Guerilla Girls has engaged in a campaign against discrimination in Hollywood. They installed around Hollywood near the time of the Academy Awards, with headlines like "The Anatomically Correct Oscar: He’s white and male, just like the guys who win!" and "Even the US Senate is More Progressive Than Hollywood!". The latter billboard also included statistics which compared the number of female directors to female senators.
They have also placed stickers in the bathrooms of movie theatres around the world including at the popular Sundance Film Festival.
Washington Post exposé
In 2007, the Guerrilla Girls did a special spread for the Washington Post, exposing the embarrassingly low numbers of women and artist of color on exhibit at public, taxpayer-funded American museums on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.. The project provoked the National Gallery to quickly reinstall a sculpture by Martin Puryear, sculpted by an African American. It also caused their female curators to commit to make the museum's exhibitions and acquisitions more diverse.
Mainstream work
Over the past few years, Guerrilla Girls have begun to be embraced by the very establishments that they have been criticizing. They have accepted many invitations from institutions like the Venice Biennale, the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art and art centers in Nothern Island and the Republic of Ireland to offer commentary on their representation of women.
In 2008, Guerrilla Girls opened Feminist Futures, the first ever symposium on feminist art at the Museum of Modern Art. They credited MoMA for making them so mad in 1985 that Guerrilla Girls emerged.
In December 2009, they erected a graffiti wall in the streets of Montreal, Quebec to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the École Polytechnique Massacre. The wall contains centuries of hate speech against women and feminists.
Every year the Guerrilla Girls visit colleges and universities, in full jungle drag, to give multi-media presentations of their history and work. They also do on-site workshops and online seminars to encourage local activism. Exhibitions of Guerrilla Girls’ work have been organized at museums in the United States as well as at Tate Modern in London, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and others throughout the world.
In a 1998 interview in the magazine Utne Reader, two Guerrilla Girls spoke about their influences. One member, using pseudonym Frida Kahlo, spoke generally, saying, "The women artists I admire most are those who had to struggle the hardest and found outrageous and inventive ways to have creative lives."
Another, calling herself Käthe Kollwitz, said, "One of my favorites is Edmonia Lewis, a 19th-century sculptor, part Chippewa, part African American, who got herself to Rome, where there was a little less discrimination. She made huge marble sculptures of Civil War and anti-slavery heroes and mythological figures. She managed to survive by crating up huge sculptures and sending them to collectors in the United States along with invoices, even though they hadn't ordered them. Often enough, they would send money back."
Critics say that while the Guerilla Girls claim to work on behalf of marginalized female artists and artists of color within the art world, they actually serve the needs of only a handful of privileged artists. The Guerilla Girls have responded by pointing to women’s groups throughout the world who have supported their work, including women in Brazil, India, Mexico, Europe, Cyprus, Bosnia, and Serbia.
Other critics assert that their activities ignore the larger trend of misogyny and patriarchy in society, focusing too narrowly on the self-interested pursuit of greater marketability and recognition of female artists. In response, the Guerrilla Girls report that a third of their posters and campaigns have addressed larger societal issues including violence against women, racial inequality, war, reproductive choice, and misguided political policies.
By the year 2001, the Guerrilla Girls had split into three new groups.
Guerrilla Girls, Inc. was established by two founding members of the group in order to continue their use of provocative text, visuals and humor in the service of feminism and social change. They have written five books and do large and small scale public projects critiquing the art world, film, politics, and pop culture in general. They have been to hundreds of colleges, universities and art museums to talk about their recent work and their 25 years as feminist masked avengers. They conduct activist workshops and online seminars along the way.
Guerrilla Girls On Tour is a touring theatre collective founded by three former members of Guerrilla Girls. It develops original plays, performances, workshops, street theatre actions, and residency programs to dramatize women's history and to address the lack of opportunity for women and artists of color in the performing arts.
Guerrilla Girls Broad Band was formed by founding members of the Guerrilla Girls and a bevy of young, next-generation feminist and artists of color. "The Broads" combat sexism, racism and social injustice, exploring such taboo subjects as feminism and fashion and discrimination in the wired workplace through their website and live, interactive activist events.
In addition to posters, Guerrilla Girls have authored five books:
Confessions of the Guerrilla Girls (Harper Collins, 1995)
The Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art (Penguin, 1998)
Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers, the Guerrilla Girls Guide to Female Stereotypes, (Penguin, 2003)
The Guerrilla Girls Art Museum Activity Book (Printed Matter, 2005)
The Hysterical Herstory of Hysteria and How It Was Cured From Ancient Times Until Now (2010)
Their books have become popular textbooks in art and art history, women and gender studies, sociology, and political science.
Film
The Guerrilla Girls' slogans and artwork were used in the film Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007). POWER UP! - Feel the Surge!
Filmmaker Amy Harrison made a film called Guerrillas in Our Midst, which was released in 1992.
Website
Guerrilla Girls maintain a large, well-trafficked website. The website contains almost all their works and actions as well as an account of their history and tactics. Their website is the only place where appearances with the Guerrilla Girls can be booked and it also contains an online store.
Artwork
Guerilla Girls sell posters, books, t-shirts and other merchandise. Many museums, libraries and schools own portfolios of Guerrilla Girls work.
