Guerrilla Girls

HOW ANONYMOUS ACTIVISTS PROVOKE THE ART WORLD

Writing and graphic by Arella Warren, Deputy Editor

Imagine you take a day trip to your local museum or cross the country to visit an esteemed gallery, only to find that less than one-tenth of all of the work on display was created by someone like you. For hundreds of agitated artists across the American and European art scene of the 1980s, this was the case. When the Museum of Modern Art first opened in 1984, only 13 women and 8 artists of color were featured in a gallery of 169.1

London and NYC of the ‘80s are known for the cultural shifts happening at the time, and for good reason. With the emergence of new politics and social ideals, people were pushing for a change. And no one challenged mainstream ideology as passionately as the guerrilla artists and activists who defined the underground scene.

Guerrilla art refers to the grassroots street art movement that took hold in the late ‘80s.2 While the artistic content may comprise a variety of subjects, the movement is shaped by several ideals, including anonymity, public and political revolution, performance, provocation and experimentation. Guerrilla art includes traditional street art graffiti, but can also take the form of public installations—often in unauthorized locations3—video projections,

¹ Guerrilla Girls, “Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly,” San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2020. ² Casey Botticello, “What is Guerrilla Art?” Medium, June 15, 2019. ³ Ibid. MODA | 46

sidewalk chalk, flyers, zines, slogans, book inserts and any other media or messaging that can be seamlessly and subversively distributed to the public.

One of the biggest pioneers of the movement are the Guerrilla Girls. Self-defined as an anonymous group of artist activists, the Guerrilla Girls “undermine the idea of a mainstream narrative by revealing the understory, the subtext, the overlooked, and the downright unfair.”4 The band formed with the intention of publicly blasting museums and contemporary art for its exclusion of women and minority creators and continues to make waves in our understanding of the art scene to this day.5

Perhaps you’ve seen the Guerrilla Girls’ iconic design for the NY Public Art fund, showcasing a nude, female body wearing a gorilla mask across a large yellow banner, reading, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?”6 When the campaign first launched in 1989, less than 5% of artists in the Met were female, while 85% of the nudes featured women; when they reviewed the statistics in 2012, the number of female artists fell to 4% with a striking 76% of female nudes.7

⁴ “Reinventing the ‘F’ Word: Feminism,” Guerrilla Girls, accessed Feb. 2022. ⁵ Ibid. ⁶ “Do Women Still Have to be Naked to Get Into the Met. Museum?” Guerrilla Girls, accessed Feb. 2022. ⁷ Ibid. Whether you’re shocked by the numbers or not, the fact is that for centuries, respectable art institutions have been entirely homogeneous. This has left us with a monoculture of Western white men setting the standard—not only for what we perceive as “good,” but also for what we accept as default. The issue with accepting this monoculture as status quo is that it makes us complacent, more narrow-minded and less likely to take risks, even at our own benefit.8

Yet, surprise and risk-taking lie at the heart of activist work, and the same goes for great art as well. In the words of one Guerrilla Girl: “The only thing you can do to a system that oppresses you is make fun of it, and we did that by being provocative.”9

It may seem bleak arguing against the masses, but guerrilla art is an undeniable force proving that provocation grabs attention. It shows us that we must never stop advocating to diversify our perspectives and change a system that works against us or else we risk writing ourselves out of history and losing who we are. ■

⁸ Kendra Cherry, “How the Status Quo Bias Affects Decisions,” Verywell Mind, Feb. 9, 2022. ⁹ Tate, “Guerrilla Girls, ‘You Have to Question What You See’ (interview),” Smarthistory, April 16, 2021.