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The poster hung on the wall: A painting of a nude woman, reclining on a divan, a gorilla mask covering her head. The corresponding text read: "Do women have to be naked to get into the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Less than five percent of artists in the Modern Arts section are women, but 85 percent of the nudes are female. Guerilla Girls."
Shocking? It's meant to be. The purpose of the Guerilla Girls is to shock you, to make you notice what they are doing. And what they want you to see, beyond the masks, is that there are great women artists whose work is routinely ignored by the art world.
The Guerilla Girls are a group of anonymous women activists fighting for gender and racial equality. Their battle is fought mainly in New York City, but it has begun to spread to other artist venues across the United States. In their "real" lives, the Guerilla Girls are artists, curators, art historians; in other words, women who have seen and experienced the discrimination in the male-dominated world of art. As individuals, they remain silent so that they are not alienated from the art community. But as a group, they put on their gorilla masks to hide their faces and assume the names of obscure dead female artists. Using the pseudonyms has a two-fold purpose. First, it allows the women their anonymity. Second, it brings recognition to the artists.
The name Guerilla Girl also has a twist of irony. The gorilla masks keep the women's identity hidden, but to refer to them as "guerilla" points to their activist nature. Even by calling themselves "girls," which would be considered very unfeminist, they point out how women artists have been demeaned over history.
The Guerilla Girls' tactics are mild -- they hang up posters and hold rallies that are meant to cause discussion -- but they have been successful. More women artists are being featured in major New York galleries. Women's art work is being discussed. Their voice of positive activism is making a difference, enough so that other art women in other cities are following the Guerilla Girls' example.
Much of the Guerilla Girls' work depends on images that make you shift your focus when looking at things. The idea is to make the viewer rethink his or her original ideal. While activism in the art world isn't new, it has taken several types of shifts. In the 1970s, feminist art activists used demand tactics, similar to other protests going on at the time. In the 90s, however, the tactics have changed to humor and parody, a tactic used well by the Guerilla Girls (after all, how can one not laugh at a reclining nude with a gorilla mask?). Still, the message is the same: Women artists are under-represented in art museums.
Are the Guerilla Girls really necessary? Take a little test. On one side of a piece of paper, list all of the female artists you've heard of. On the other side of the paper, list the male artists.
The Guerilla Girls have a lot of work to do to bring female artists into the mainstream, but they are off to a good start.
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