Showing posts with label tate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tate. Show all posts

Friday, March 21, 2014

"REINVENTING THE "F" WORD: FEMINISM!"

There is this super hero group of feminists called the Guerrilla Girls, if you weren't already aware. These women take on the names of dead female artists as they promote women's rights and when in public making speeches they wear guerrilla masks so that their identities do not distract from what they are promoting. This organization is very secretive and works worldwide so they have many anonymous people working to put up posters in various cities. Here are some of their posters:
Guerrilla Girls, [no title], 1985-90, screen print on paper
Guerrilla Girls, [no title], 1985-90, screen print on paper
Guerrilla Girls, [no title], 1985-90, screen print on paper
These are in the Tate museum(s) in Great Britain and they're apart of the the Guerrilla Girls Talk Back series of many screen prints about their views. The group's official opinion about their philosophy on their art is:
"We try to be different from the kind of political art that is angry and points to something and says 'This is bad.' That's preaching to the converted. We want to be subversive, to transform our audience, to confront them with some disarming statements, backed up by facts—and great visuals—and hopefully convert them. We carefully craft everything we do. We try to twist an issue around and present it in a way that hasn't been seen before. We usually test-drive a project by showing it to a few people beforehand to gauge their response. We've also learned that focusing on one aspect of an issue is better than trying the change the whole world in a single work."
The Guerrilla Girls even made an art history book titled "Guerrilla Girls: A Guide to Western Art" which includes all of the behind the scenes looks at women's rights in the art world. This book isn't just a whim, but it's used as a college textbook worldwide.
Don't start to think that this group is all done protesting, they still are holding exhibitions of their screen prints across the world as well as writing books and putting up billboards. So keep a look out!

Citations:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-no-title-p78793
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-no-title-p78797
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-no-title-p78796
http://www.guerrillagirls.com