Guerrilla Girls

Have you ever noticed how disproportionate the ratio of male to female artists are when walking around any art gallery/museum such as the Tate Modern, National Gallery or the Tate Britain? I certainly have and the Guerrilla Girls, a feminist group of artists also did, bringing them to the the forefront of the feminist art movement since the middle of the 20th century. Their story of sneaking out in the middle of the night to pin up their first posters(of which many were controversial) on to the streets of Soho, New York to how much attention and debate they quickly received is what I find so fascinating about them.

This poster above first appeared as an advert on the side of New York busses in 1989

Their thought provoking posters (which you have most likely seen before) are made even more intriguing due to the anonymity of this group making the viewer question society as a whole, as if this group are creating to represent all those discriminated against and marginalised in society which is still prevalent to this day. To remain anonymous the group wear gorilla masks and use pseudonyms to represent dead female artists such as Frida Kahlo. The reason behind their hidden identity is purely down to the fact that they believe that their message is more important than their individual identities and they don't want who they are to detract from their work in exposing these societal issues.

Some may not necessarily consider their work as art and think that anyone could throw some inspiring words on to a page but they are more than that; their sole purpose is to raise awareness and make people think and question the role of gender, age or ethnicity in the art industry as well as in society as a whole.

This poster above was published in 1988 to mock but also expose the art world as being a place in which female presence diminished dramatically in the 1980s with only 10% of the 169 artists work displayed in 'The International Survey of Painting and Sculpture' held at MoMA in 1984 being female artists. Through their wit and irony they introduced this idea of a double standard within their industry and targeted museums, dealers, critics and artists to expose a side of the art world that hadn't really been bought to the front of peoples attention on this larger scale before.

Their posters really make the viewer question the role of females in the artistic industry and even in this day and age what they stood for is still very relevant and has sparked many uncomfortable questions to be asked and controversial topics to be discussed over the past 40 years.