MLE,
I love them. It’s remarkable that they have been fighting sexism in the art world for over thirty years now.
A little background… They were formed in NYC in 1985 as a response to the Museum of Modern Art's important exhibition called, “An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture.” This show positioned itself as a survey of the most important contemporary art and artists in the world. The curator even gave numerous interviews saying that any artist who wasn’t in the show should rethink ‘his’ career.
However, only 13 of the 169 artists were female.
Now, thirty years on, how are we doing? Hmm, not well, if you see their visual above comparing the number of one-person exhibitions in 1985 compared to 2015.
The other visuals above from the Whitechapel Gallery exhibition here in London show how European museums are doing. It’s a simple concept: the Guerrilla Girls sent questionnaires to over 400 directors of art museums and galleries across Europe. The responses were displayed on the gallery walls.
I love them. They do a much better job than most to make people aware of sexism in the art world - often using the exact words of the museum directors themselves.
The final visual I found interesting as it does not show depressing gender statistics, but rather depressing stats which show, yet again, how things are getting harder for everyone except the elites.
Suzan
