The Guerrilla Girls: Exposing Prejudice and Corruption
The Guerrilla Girls are a group of feminist activists and dissident artists who dress as gorillas in public and use humor, information, and stunning graphics to expose sexual orientation, ethnic preference, and debasing behavior in media, politics, and the arts. They addressed concerns of racial and gender prejudice in the arts.
Exposing Corruption Through Cultural Intervention
In order to expose corruption, they used their culture through posters, exhibitions, protests, and marches. The guerrilla girls carried out "weenie" counts during these formative years so that members could frequently visit locations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and count the female to male ratio there. The ratio was used to show that women artists produced less than 5% of the work in the art department. They also found out that 85% of the nudes in the art galleries belonged to females.
Specific Artwork and Bold Protests
Through their existence, they have gained the most attention for their bold protests. They were always fact-driven, they distributed handouts and posted posters throughout Manhattan, New York. These posters contained information regarding inequality (RYZIK 2015). Soon after, the group expanded their activity to include racism in the world of art, attracting different artists of color. They took on projects outside of New York, enabling them to address sexism and racism nationally and internationally. Despite the fact that the art world was the primary concentration of the group, the Guerrilla Girls' plan has included both racism and sexism in movies, mass and pop culture, and governmental issues. They also focused on male and female art concerning payments and exhibition portrayal.
Acquiring Recognition and Overcoming Challenges
The Guerrilla Girls have lately been enjoying the victory. Earlier on, an American Art Museum acquired the group's portfolio of 88 posters and ephemera from 1985 to 2012, they were documented and the minorities were represented in institutions and art galleries including the Whitney itself. During the years membership has gone from a high of about 30 art world women to a few members remaining. Many women left to pursue other professions. Though most of them are still committed to the movement.
Controversy and Persistence
Most people thought that they were misusing their rights since some of the posters they put up were rude, they named people and printed out statistics, many people were embarrassed by those. They called it cultural warfare. Some of their renowned quotes included "we needn't bother with cash; we simply require bananas." According to one of the leaders, the group's key mission is still to uncover sexism and prejudice in the art world and, while the language may have changed over the years (Martorana 2017). Guerrilla girls' protests were data-driven way before data collection became a thing in the world; over the years, they had grown to speak out and eradicate inequalities and sexism in Hollywood theaters. They created another market paradigm.
An Anonymous Force Fighting for Equality
The Guerrilla Girls made feminism seem like one of those glamorous clubs one could join. According to Roberta Smith, the group took feminist theory into their own hands, transformed it by giving it a populist twist, and set it loose on the streets. In admitting women only, and exclusively by invitation, the group moved around power circles in the male-dominated art world while remaining anonymous. They always wore gorilla masks to maintain anonymity; this helped in keeping the focus on the issues women were facing rather than their personalities. Each member took the name of a deceased artist or another creative luminary. Their real identities remain unknown up until now.
Bibliography
Martorana, Christine. “Enacting Feminist Agency: Responsible Anonymity Visual Parodox, and the Guerrilla Girls.” Women & Language, 2017: 7-30.
RYZIK, MELENA. The Guerrilla Girls, After 3 Decades, Still Rattling Art World Cages. August 5, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/arts/design/the-guerrilla-girls-after-3-decades-still-rattling-art-world-cages.html (accessed October 23, 2017).
