(This is second article detailing my meeting with the Guerrilla Girls. Yes, I wrote multiple articles. Cause they really are that fantastic. I promise, there’s only one more account coming your way, once it’s published in January.)
This fall, I stood in the Acadia University Art Gallery, incredibly excited and, frankly, terrified. I was there to meet a pair of artists who had just launched their exhibition—two women who are not only internationally recognized artist-activists, but personal heroes of mine: The Guerrilla Girls.
I waited, flipping through notes and furrowing my brow, trying not to worry that when I met the artists all my careful preparation would be forgotten and I would simply stare at them.
My worries were for naught. When the gallery’s director brought them over for introductions, I greeted them eagerly—despite their full-face gorilla masks.
Yes, gorilla masks: wrinkled ape faces surrounded by fur. That’s The Guerrilla Girls’ modus operandi: they’re masked feminist avengers.
The Guerrilla Girls have been wreaking havoc as the self-proclaimed “conscience of the art world” since 1985. The activist collective formed when a group of women artists banned together to combat the sexism and racism that was—and still is—an epidemic in the art world. To protect their individual careers from backlash, anonymity was necessary. They joke that a member misspelled guerilla as gorilla and thus the disguise was born. Each Guerrilla Girl also operates under the name of a deceased female artist.
Their primary medium is text-and graphic-based print media made for mass consumption (such as posters and billboards). Their specialty is making outrageous-sounding claims—and backing them up with facts. One iconic work asks “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” followed by the fact that 83% of the nudes in the Modern Art sections are female, and only 3% of the artists showcased are women. The sexism is shocking and undeniable.
They’ve garnered much attention: they’ve been shown in the Tate Modern and Pompidou Centre and are studied in art classes. The latter, in fact, is how their Acadia exhibit came to be. Acadia’s gallery director, Laurie Dalton, studied the artists while earning her Acadia degree in Art History. In 2008, Dalton contacted the group about the possibility of an exhibition—their first on the east coast of Canada. “They were interested from the outset; they were excited to come to a new place and expose people to their work for the first time,” she explains. Thanks to Dalton’s work, and the support of Acadia and the Province of Nova Scotia’s Department of Tourism, Culture & Heritage, a showcase of some of The Guerrilla Girls’ best known work was shown from September 17th-November 1st. Two of the group’s founding members, Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz, visited Wolfville to give a public talk and facilitate workshops in conjunction with the exhibit’s launch.
I wasn’t the only person eager to meet the pair during their visit. The 500-seat Festival Theatre was at near-capacity for their performance and the workshops held were filled with activists, artists, professors, and others. Dalton says that since the exhibit opened, over 1 000 people have visited it.
The day after I met them, I sat in my car, outside the gallery, about to head out of town. I checked a mirror and saw two pairs of familiar looking black shoes striding past—The Guerrilla Girls. I twisted around in my seat, cursing the restraining effect of my seatbelt, trying to catch a final glimpse of the artists—perhaps even without masks. I contorted until I was practically straddling the driver’s seat and see The Guerrilla Girls, unmasked… from behind.
I slid back into the driver’s seat, shaking my head at my luck. I glance behind me as I began to back up—and hit the brakes. Kahlo and Kollwitz had stopped just outside the gallery and were pulling their masks on before entering. My eyes widened as I realized I was watching The Guerrilla Girls don their disguises. I was witnessing something profound: the moment of stealthy transformation from regular artists to costumed heroines. And then they simply slipped inside, leaving me alone with the giddiness that comes with having been privy to a moment that was absolutely bananas.
Originally published (in a very-slightly-shorter version) in the fall ‘09 issue of Acadia’s Alumni magazine, Bulletin.
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