How does one become a Guerrilla Girl?
in honor of women's history month and more civil disobedience
Back in 2015 I took my daughter to see the Guerrilla Girls speak at Smith College, since then I have googled “how does one become a Guerrilla Girl” multiple times. I believe I would really make a really good one! (Life goals)
The above image is from The Women Who Changed Art Forever: Feminist Art – The Graphic Novel by Valentina Grande (Author), Eva Rossetti (Illustrator) which tells the story of 4 pioneering feminist artists: Judy Chicago, Faith Ringold, Ana Mendieta, and the Guerilla Girls. All four of these artists have played an important role in my development. I first came across the “Dinner Party” series by Judy Chicago as a young teen and to say it shaped my life is an understatement. When I finally got to see it in person at the Brooklyn Museum it transported me right back what to what I felt as a young girl in the 1970’s-1980’s having been blown right open by the possibilities, the concept and execution.
Faith Ringold I am embarrassed to say is a new addition to my repertoire of artists. I saw her amazing body of work as a retrospective at the New Museum, NYC last year. The story telling and poignancy of her work is mesmerizing. I’m slowly catching up.
Ana Mendieta (Cuban Visual/Performance artist) who fleed to the US during Fidel Castros government with her sister Raquel (over 14,000 Cuban children immigrated during this time). Ana’s work is powerful, original and raw as can be, often using human blood, hair and earth in her performance pieces, her body was often the subject and object of the work. Circumstances around her death have caused a split in the art community. Learn all about it in Death of an Artist podcast series.
There is a niche of art books which I collect- the graphic novel biography. I am a super visual person so the combination of visual story telling method along with show casing the artist works is a plus for me. Also, seeing how the authors style combines with the artists style is so interesting. My collection begun when I accidentally stumbled upon “Photographic The life of Gabriela Iturbide” back in 2018.
“Because men have a history, it is difficult for them to imagine what it is like to grow up without one, or the sense of personal expansion that comes from discovering that we women have a worthy heritage. Along with pride often comes rage – rage that one has been deprived of such a significant knowledge.”
― Judy Chicago
Sometime in the early days of instagram I stumbled upon The Great Women artists instagram where a different woman artist was highlighted daily. As some one whose mission has always been to support and lift the work of women I discovered I was sorely lacking knowledge and understanding about women artists and their role in his/herstory. One morning during the quiet days of quarantine in 2020, I decided to name all the women artists I could think of… Frida Kahlo, Georgia O Keefe. . . was it performance anxiety. . .oh Judy Chicago, Hilma af Klint, Dorothea Lang, Mary Cassatt, Yoko and Kusama. . . wait are Guerrilla Girls artists? is Hildegard Von Bingen an artist… That’s as far as I got. Mortified I set myself a goal to be able to name 20 women artists and know a little about their artwork and lives. The list started growing and growing and has not stopped since.
This year I set myself a different goal, a much loftier one which combines my passion for geography with art. To learn about one woman identifying or non binary artist from every country of the world. I believe there are 195 countries. It's slow going as I’m making it an organic process adding artists to the list as I discover them as opposed to actively seeking them out. So far I only have 25 countries covered. I will share the list when I hit 50! I do have 6 for France,and 5 for Germany, several for Mexico and Japan, many for the UK and the US but I only count each country once! (I mentioned a few weeks ago how I’m all about lists)
Thanks to the amazing (and ground breaking) work of
of The Great Women artists instagram/podcast and author of the soon to be released in the US The Story of Art Without Men book which I was lucky to get my hands on last year when it was released in the UK. The book is designed to complement to Ernst Gombrich’s catalogue of the history of art, The Story of Art (1950), or Janson’s History of Art which when first published failed to mention a single woman.Here is why we still need to promote non male artists in 2023
In 1971 Art Critic/Professor Linda Nochlin wrote her famous essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”, in which she argued that societal forces—and not a lack of “genius” or inherent talent—had for centuries kept women artists from attaining the same professional success and regard as their male counterparts.
“The fault lies not in our stars, our hormones, our menstrual cycles, or our empty internal spaces, but in our institutions and our education – education understood to include everything that happens to us from the moment we enter this world of meaningful symbols, signs, and signals. The miracle is, in fact, that given the overwhelming odds against women, or blacks, that so many of both have managed to achieve so much sheer excellence, in those bailiwicks of white masculine prerogative like science, politics, or the arts.”
Living women artists actually earn 10 percent or 11 percent of male artists. The Burns Halperin Report reports representation and changes in representation in the art world begun in 2018 by independent editor Charlotte Burns and Artnet News’s Julia Halperin. It reported at the end of 2022 that the art world was diversifying at a snails pace. After looking at the acquisitions and exhibitions taking place at thirty-one American museums between 2008 and 2020, the study’s authors concluded that work by female-identifying artists accounted for 11 percent of acquisitions during the cited span. Work by Black American artists represented a shocking 2.2 percent. A mere 0.5 percent of acquisitions were of work by Black American women.
Some 45 years after she published “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”, Nochlin reflected on the ways in which the art world had changed since she wrote her trailblazing essay. “Certainly, there are more shows by women artists in museums, especially university museums, than there used to be,” she told Reilly of ARTNews back in 2015. “But … the art market is in many ways still a boys’ club, with men competing with other rich men to see who can pay the highest prices.”
It is super depressing to think that Nochlin wrote her call to arms 51 years ago, as it’s still so real and so relevant. We must do better!
I was born in 1970 the year of the first Earth Day, the first Gay Pride March in NYC (honoring the one year anniversary of Stonewall) and the year before Linda Nochlins seminal work, I can’t help feeling that these events have shaped me and my life work.
As the guerrilla girls are anonymous, to allow for individual identities in interviews, they use the pseudonyms of deceased female artists. Mine would be Remedios Varo a perfect reference to all the herbal remedies I make, don’t you think it’s a good fit? If you were a guerrilla girl what would your name be? Seriously, how does one become a guerrilla girl? @guerillagirls please sign me up! (if anyone has an in please please put in a good word ;-))
References
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/heres-every-element-of-the-2022-burns-halperin-report-all-in-one-place-2237166
https://hyperallergic.com/377975/an-illustrated-guide-to-linda-nochlins-why-have-there-been-no-great-women-artists/
https://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Nochlin-Linda_Why-Have-There-Been-No-Great-Women-Artists.pdf
Another great read on this topic is John Berger’s Ways of Seeing
Next up: Celebrating Blanche Cybele Derby, Artist, Wild Foods Forager and local hero!
My aunt was an abstract painter who escaped from East Germany and lived the rest of her life in Düsseldorf. She died in 2011. I’m actually named after her, so maybe not the best choice for a pseudonym!