Latest news with #GuerrillaGirls
BBC News
5 days ago
- Lifestyle
- BBC News
The naked billboard that shocked the establishment – and blazed a trail in the art world
It's been 40 years since the controversial activist group Guerrilla Girls formed. Their most powerful campaign, the "naked poster", broke new ground – and has had a lasting influence. On a Sunday morning in New York in 1989, a few women perused the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hidden among the regular punters, the anonymous feminist art collective, the Guerrilla Girls, went unnoticed as they carefully counted the number of female artists versus the number of naked women depicted in the artworks. They were on a secret mission to make people care about the racial and gender unfairness of the art world. "The idea always was to find that kernel that was unforgettable," one of the founding members of the Guerrilla Girls, who uses the alias Käthe Kollwitz, tells the BBC at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, ahead of an exhibition that celebrates 40 years of their work. They made their way through the different rooms – past the male nudes of ancient Greece and the near absence of nudity in the early Christian sections – but it was when they hit the early modern era that they found the statistics that would lead to their biting criticism of the art world. They posed the question of who was allowed to be subject and object in the lofty corridors of the world's most prestigious art institutions. "Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female," reads the poster, next to a female nude whose head is covered by the group's trademark gorilla mask. To this day, the group remains anonymous, and when the BBC interviews Kollwitz, she is wearing the mask. "I don't think anyone who actually looks at that poster can go into a museum and not think about what is on the walls and why," she says. The Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get into the Met Museum? poster was meant to have been a commission from the New York Public Art Fund, but on seeing the final result, the funding was pulled. The Guerrilla Girls committed to their message and put it on billboards and buses themselves. "We decided to buy space on NYC buses. We also pasted it up ourselves on NYC streets." The poster threw the collective into the spotlight and cemented their style with a mass audience. The mix of humour, statistics and bold advertising slogans was the culmination of several years of working out how to tackle gender and racial inequality. The group's initial two posters – What Do These Artists Have in Common? and These Galleries Show No More Than 10% Women Artists or None at All – were plastered on walls, street lamps and telephone booths in New York, with no need for permission from the decisions of those who ran the powerful art institutions. The Guerrilla Girls' decision to adopt the language of advertising was in reaction to what they saw as the ineffectiveness of traditional protests. The group formed in 1985 after attending a protest outside the Museum of Modern Art in New York the previous year. The International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture had only featured 17 women and eight artists of colour out of 169 artists. "A couple of us went to this protest, and it was so clear nobody cared. Everyone just went inside the museum. You know, all these signs about women's art. They didn't believe it for a minute. And that was really the 'aha' moment." The "Naked" poster, as Kollwitz refers to it, was a game-changer. "We often have crazy visuals, facts, and humour – things to draw them in – and if you actually look at our posters, you'll never see art quite the same way again." 'Undeniable change' Author and podcaster Katy Hessel, in her book The Story of Art Without Men, points to how artists coming up through the '80s had all grown up with televisions in their homes. "Playing with the media (and art history's) stereotypes of women, they took back control of the gaze and turned it upon themselves." "The Guerrilla Girls brought public attention to the inequalities and systematic discrimination in the art world, and ultimately asked – just how did museums get away with celebrating the history of patriarchy instead of the history of art?" From being an outside force pushing for space, their text-based work now often hangs in the very places they once sought to provoke. Their continued anonymity is another invitation to remember women artists who struggled in their time. All the founding members are art professionals in their own right, but as the Guerrilla Girls, they carry the pseudonyms of deceased artists like Frida Kahlo and Zubeida Agha. More like this:• The masterpiece full of coded messages about WW1• Nine striking rare photos of 19th-Century America• The meaning behind Cannes' 'naked dress' ban "More than being anonymous, it's the way they do it that is also really clever," says Michael Wellen, a senior curator at Tate Modern in London, which has an ongoing free collection of their work on display. "There's a moment of education every time you're figuring out who you're talking to." Since their original counting of nudes in the Met, the art world has changed. But inequity between artists of colour and women in comparison to white men still exists. This can be seen not just in who hangs on the walls but in other areas of the art market. For example, artwork by women only accounts for 39% of gallery sales, according to a report by Art Basel in 2024. Recent studies also point out that permanent collections in major US galleries are 85% white and 87% male. In the UK, it was only in 2023 that the Royal Academy in London displayed Marina Abramović's lifetime of work – making her the first woman to have a major solo exhibition in their main galleries. "I think that there's undeniable change in how museums represent the history of art and contemporary art – and in large part, it's due to the light that the Guerrilla Girls have shone on these inequalities," says Wellen. While the poster protest was originally critiquing who was allowed to hang on the walls of museums and galleries, this focus has evolved for the Guerrilla Girls as well as for other artist activists, who are now scrutinising how funding is secured and where donors earn their money. In 2019, US art photographer and activist Nan Goldin staged a protest at the Guggenheim, dropping thousands of prescriptions into the atrium in protest against the museum accepting donations from the Sackler family, who own Purdue Pharma, the makers of prescription painkiller OxyContin, which has been blamed for fuelling the US opioid crisis. The protest featured in the documentary The Beauty and the Bloodshed. The Guerrilla Girls' work has also evolved to take on broader issues, tackling environmental concerns and expanding their signature style globally over the years. The founding members operate like a cell and have collaborated internationally, with approximately 60 contributors across Asia, Latin America and Europe. In March this year, they created a poster with the Bulgarian Women's Fund. Don't They Deserve More Than a Thin Slice of Government? criticised the lack of women's representation in the country's government. Tracking progress is difficult. Over the years, the Guerrilla Girls have revisited the poster that threw them into the spotlight, conducting recounts. It's a jarring commentary on how little things can change despite public pressure. Between 1989, 2005, and 2012, the number of female nudes in the Met decreased – but the number of women artists actually shrank. Of course, this isn't indicative of every institution, but as always with their work, the message is clear: there is still more to be done. "I chose her because she was a political artist, and that's what I consider the Guerrilla Girls and myself as well," says Kollwitz, when asked why she named herself after the German artist. Born in 1867, the real Käthe Kollwitz's work focused on women, and was profoundly anti-war. Stylistically her work is very different from the Guerrilla Girls, but the thematic content overlaps. The Guerrilla Girls remain active, and crossing the 40-year threshold is a moment for reflection – but also a time to look ahead. You might expect someone who has been battling injustices for decades with snail-like progress to be exhausted, but Kollwitz says the challenge of progress is what inspires the collective. In November, they will exhibit at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, and a graphic novel is in the works. 'We will never stop making trouble,' she says. "Our fight is not over." Guerrilla Girls: Making Trouble is at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC until 28 September. -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Herald Scotland
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The inspirational artist who had a 'love affair' with Andy Murray
**** If one morning you should ever call on the painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling for tea, don't bring her a croissant. A cinnamon bun is grand, but a croissant will be met with a (very) firm refusal. Here's hoping I took a lot more away from this film by the art historian Kate Bryan than the skinny on Hambling's pastry choices. It was an enthralling, funny, sometimes magical hour, the first of three programmes on women artists. Being on Sky Arts, it was free to view as well. Bryan was rather chuffed with the bun breakthrough. 'Oh, did I get that right?' she cried. It was the start of the seven days and she was excited but nervous. 'Famously, Maggi's not one to bare all for the cameras,' said Bryan. 'She's never let anyone spend time with her like this before,' we heard. And: 'She is famously reluctant to talk about [her work].' We got the idea. Judging by the greeting, the two were not strangers, but you knew what Bryan meant. While Hambling is a formidable presence, she balances this with a wry sense of humour, as when Bryan laughed at the artist's 'rather fierce' passport photo. 'People have said they're surprised I'm let back into the country,' said Hambling. Read more The two were coming home from Turin and an exhibition of her work from the last 15 years. With her shades, drainpipe jeans and wild grey hair (think Brian May with a bob), Hambling looked and walked like a bit of a geezer. It had been 18 months since her heart attack in New York, and she appeared on fine form. We saw inside her London home and studio, but she drew the line at being filmed working. 'I can't paint in front of a camera because it will become performance,' she said. However, she did describe the relationship between painter and subject. 'They have to sit on a table over there so my eyes are going straight into their eyes … Bit like a love affair. You hope at the end there will be a good portrait and not a broken heart.' Andy Murray with portrait by Maggi Hambling (Image: David Parry/National Portrait Gallery/PA Wire) The last such 'love affair' was with one Andy Murray. They shared a mutual interest in each other's work, he visited her studio, the two became friends and she asked him to sit for her. Hambling was nervous on the day. 'He arrived with a tennis racket he had played with as a present. He's incredibly shy. I had him pose serving. To me it was only like a couple of minutes that he stood there serving, but to him it was a lot longer. After a bit he said I can't stay like this any longer, I'm going to fall on my face.' To complete the seven days, Bryan travelled to Hambling's weekend place in Suffolk, where an installation by the artist moved the presenter to tears. 'My God she's an icon,' concluded Bryan, which Hambling might have laughed at had she heard. It will be hard for Bryan to beat this with her next films, on Lubiana Himid and the Guerrilla Girls, but a lot of fun to watch her try.
New York Times
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Look Back at the Guerrilla Girls, 40 Years In
This article is part of our Museums special section about how artists and institutions are adapting to changing times. When it comes to artists whose works have a decidedly feminist bent, the Guerrilla Girls are among the most prominent. Composed of a collective of anonymous artists, they first made their mark in 1985 with declarative message-bearing prints that spoke out against discrimination and advocated for more inclusivity in the art world. Since then, the group has created hundreds of provocative prints, posters, billboards and everyday objects, including tote bags and erasers. Their pieces address such issues as reproductive rights, gender and racial inequality and political corruption. The Guerrilla Girls' art is displayed in major museums worldwide, including the Tate Modern in London, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Guerrilla Girls, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is commemorating the moment with an exhibition, 'Guerrilla Girls: Making Trouble,' on view now to Sept. 28. A Guerrilla Girl who uses the pseudonym Käthe Kollwitz (a German artist of the late 19th- and early 20th centuries), in one of the masks worn by the artist activists to hide their identities. Credit... Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russian ambassador to Bulgaria chased out of Sofia gallery amid chants of "Murderer!"
Eleonora Mitrofanova, Russia's ambassador to Bulgaria, was forced to leave the National Gallery Kvadrat 500 in Sofia as attendees chanted "Murderer!" and "This is not Moscow". Source: Radio Free Europe's Bulgarian Service, as reported by European Pravda Details: The incident occurred on Thursday evening during the opening of an exhibition by the New York activist group Guerrilla Girls. A video obtained by Radio Free Europe from journalist Iva Roudnikova shows Mitrofanova entering one of the halls at Kvadrat 500. Initially, she was met with silence, but then a young woman began shouting "This is not Moscow. This is Europe", and Mitrofanova responded in Russian. As Mitrofanova moved to the next hall, the young woman, who identified herself as Natalia Todorova, continued following her, calling her a "murderer". In the next hall, where a larger crowd had gathered, more people joined in chanting "This is not Moscow". Guerrilla Girls is a group of visual artists who remain anonymous by wearing gorilla masks. On Thursday evening, two of its founding members, using the pseudonyms Frida Kahlo and Käthe Kollwitz, were present in Sofia to introduce the exhibition The Art of Behaving Badly. The activists are visiting Bulgaria at the invitation of the Bulgarian Fund for Women in partnership with the National Gallery/Kvadrat 500. Notably, former Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov directly accused Mitrofanova of bribing Bulgarian MPs and engaging in subversive activities against the country. In 2023, Bulgaria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Mitrofanova of spreading disinformation after she claimed that sending Bulgarian troops to Ukraine would negatively impact Sofia-Moscow relations. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
