Guerrilla GirlsReseñas

A new compilation documenting the work of the Guerrilla Girls over the last 35 years. They have been calling out the art world to advocate for better representation of women and artists of color in museum collections, gallery shows, exhibition reviews, and financial compensation. They are unsung masters of infographics, combining depressing statistics with wit and tongues firmly in cheek.

Thank you, GG, for all of your work, though I wish it was no longer necessary. Sadly, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Although there has been incremental progress, it is not enough. More can and needs to be done. Alas, this book ends in early 2019, so there is nothing about recent attempts at unionization by art workers, especially in New York and Los Angeles. Many institutions, such as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, were re-examining their collections and how they describe them. And then the pandemic hit, and many museums have permanently laid off workers. The Guerrilla Girls work to increase diversity is even more vital during this year of reckoning,

In 1985, the Guerrilla Girls made a startling observation: of the 169 artists featured in the MoMA exhibition An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, only a small minority were women or artists of colour. From that moment on the group unceasingly created poster campaigns, handouts, leaflets and other ephemera in the aim of "opening the public eye to the discrimination which reigns within our very phallo- and ethno-centric artistic institutions".

Their printed matter is most often used in the context of actions taking place in public spaces. Pasting up posters in the street and handing out flyers or manifestos allow The Guerrilla Girls to reach a wider audience, but direct contact with the general public also exposes them to confrontation and the risk of violent reactions from opponents who wish to silence them.

Keeping in mind their will to communicate with the masses, these "Bad Girls" employ simple yet striking visual codes. Their texts are as succinct and incisive as advertising slogans and are systematically typeset in capital letters and bold or ultra-bold fonts. The posters are printed in flashy colours and one can clearly observe a penchant for girly pinks, yellow, red and black. Images are directly plundered from archetypal scenes of art history and radically set against monochrome backgrounds by means of brash digital cutouts, free of any secondary and superfluous information.

The group clever use of iconography is epitomized in the figure of the gorilla, a mask of which members don before each intervention. After all, there is just a hair's breadth between "guerrilla" and "gorilla".

The mask acts both as signature and disguise, allowing The Guerrilla Girls to hide their true identities while riffing on well-known gender-normative superheroes whom we need not name. The Guerrilla Girls' first intention is to save the art world from its prime enemies: sexism and racism. The mask provides a place for anonymity in their struggle. It hides each member's identity and therefore protects him or her from any consequences that might be detrimental to their careers as artists or to their private lives. But if it is to be considered as an accessory or an element of camouflage, the mask can also become comical or ironic.

Choosing a primate as your emblem is of course far from anodyne. While monkeys are often considered comical due to their mimetic nature, the gorilla comes across as menacing or threatening and potentially aggressive. The long, sharp incisors of the Guerrilla Girls' masks clearly illustrate this point. And so we are in agreement: their opinion must be heard.

Once again, of course, it's the mask that allows this amazing feat. The listener's attention is concentrated on the words spoken and not on the identity of he/she speaking. The content we see or rather read on the Guerrilla Girls' posters and handouts is not relegated to a position of secondary importance behind an individual's identity. Discourse prevails here.

A new Guerrilla Girls publication entitled The Hysterical Herstory of Hysteria and How It Was Cured, produced and published by mfc-michèle didier is added to the printed ephemera.

This edition takes the form of a "board book"; its thick pages remind us of children's educational volumes while offering a didactic and satirical reading of the history of a neurosis considered to affect only the fair sex.

Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly is the first book to catalog the entire career of the Guerrilla Girls from 1985 to present.

The Guerrilla girls are a collective of political feminist artists who expose discrimination and corruption in art, film, politics, and pop culture all around the world.

This book explores all their provocative street campaigns, unforgettable media appearances, and large-scale exhibitions.
Each copy comes with a punch-out gorilla mask that invites readers to step up and join the movement themselves.
Captions by the Guerrilla Girls themselves contextualize the visuals.
Explores their well-researched, intersectional takedown of the patriarchy
In 1985, a group of masked feminist avengers—known as the Guerrilla Girls—papered downtown Manhattan with posters calling out the Museum of Modern Art for its lack of representation of female artists.

They quickly became a global phenomenon, and the fearless activists have produced hundreds of posters, stickers, and billboards ever since.
More than a monograph, this book is a call to arms.
This career-spanning volume is published to coincide with their 35th anniversary.
Perfect for artists, art lovers, feminists, fans of the Guerrilla Girls, students, and activists
Add it to the shelf with books like Wall and Piece by Banksy, Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope by Artisan, and Graffiti Women: Street Art from Five Continents by Nicholas Ganz

I love this book so much.

Essential to the study of art and history. Classic, crucial.

A good intro to women aritsts in history that are often not talked about, made me want to go out and find more about them. However . . . a bit too over-the-top for me and man-bashing. I'm a feminist through and through, but the book skates over why women artists have been marginalized, that it's a longstanding cultural atmosphere --- I wish the book had been twice the length so it could have offered more explanation, more analysis.

This book is so rad and would be so fun to use with a class. It's basically like TV in book form -- really visual, lots of little boxes to hold your attention, and very entertaining. It be a great gift for a teen.

The Guerilla Girls are a group of women artists and professionals in the arts who work against discrimination of women in the arts and in art history. They remain anonymous by wearing gorilla masks when out in public.

Page eight of The Guerilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art states that this volume:

"isn't a comprehensive survey of women artists in history. It doesn't include all the cultures of this world. It's not a list of the most significant women artists. It wasn't written for experts who already know all this stuff. Writing about women artists in Western history is complicated. There are a lot of contradictory positions and theories. We have opted to stay out of the theory wars, and present our irreverent take on what life was like for some females in the West who managed, against all odds, to make art".

Their irreverent take on the history of women in the arts include comic strips, mock interviews, mock postcards and/or letters. This less-serious approach may be useful for those who might feel defensive about the role that male artists, and males in general, have played in women being treated as less in art history and their artistic skills.

I wish still-living modern female artists had been included in this volume, such as Judy Chicago, but they are intentionally left out by the Guerilla Girls because they don't believe in "evaluating or excluding our peers". I can understand that sentiment, though I doubt males would worry about evaluating or excluding their male artistic peers.

A good historic introduction to women artists, and I can see it appealing to young adults as well.½

This is an excellent and easy to read primer for anyone wanting to look into the stereotyping of women. A variety of categories women are lumped into are examined, illustrated, and explained in all their sexist histories. Using biting sarcasm touched with humor, the Guerrilla Girls explain how stereotypes have affected women though time. Tips for how to overcome or remove stereotypes are also scattered throughout the book. For a light yet revealing introduction to feminism and the stereotyping of woman, you can't find a better and more entertaining book. The last few pages also feature tools to create your own feminist subversions and a thorough bibliography for further research.

The Guerilla Girls' present a quick overview of the omitted art history of female artists. The Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art performs as stated - each page is an easily digested tidbit of information about women's roles in art and the lives they lead. Most articles are confined to two pages and include examples of the artwork and pictures of the artists.

In-depth information won't be found in this book, other than the additional resources list provided at the back of the book. However, this book serves as an excellent ancillary to any traditional art history book that vastly under-represents female artists. For anyone wanting an entertaining, yet informative, graphic-intensive overview of the women left out of art history books, this is a great starting point.

A good, quick book showcasing the different stereotypes that all women will face throughout their lives

This book offers a whirlwind tour of the roles played (or not played) by women throughout the history of art in the "Western World," from the age of the Greek city-state to the end of the twentieth century. Tackling taboos century by century, the book's anonymous authors explode sexist myths as they cast light on the achievements of many of the underrated, underreported, damned-near invisible female artists who've labored mightily over the past few millennia to make marks on the male-dominated world of fine art. The book is a response to the chauvinistic "canonical" texts on art history and analysis that virtually exclude from their pages any mention of women artists and their accomplishments.

I appreciate the theme of this book, and its reason for being. The authors' voice offers the timbre needed to fill out the art world's oratorio. I've definitely learned from reading it, and have been left with a longing to learn more.

That said, the book is laid out like a modern middle school textbook, replete with eye-catching graphics, boxed trivial tidbits on the margins, whimsical fonts and photo montages. All of this offers ample opportunity for distraction. The medium reinforces the fact that the book's authors spend no more than two pages on any single artist, painting the merest outline of each. Many of these character sketches read like quickly-researched essays written by attention-deficit high schoolers, and do little justice to the artists they treat. Thankfully the book ends with an extensive list of texts for further reading.

In summary, the book was an eye-opener, and worth reading, but not exceedingly well-done, and mercifully short.

The New York Times Book Review wrote: “A leveling indictment of bigotry in the art world, the work of the Guerrilla Girls elevates cage-bar rattling to a fine art.”

Recommended by: Justine

I wish that this book was longer. I was disappointed by it. 'Bitches, Bimbos, and Ballbreakers' offered no insights, just tired old rehash of things we've all heard before. I will say though, that it's colorful and funny.½

from www.guerillagirls.com:

Here's the blurb from the back of the book:

In their newest book, BITCHES, BIMBOS, AND BALLBREAKERS: The Guerrilla Girls' Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes (Penguin paperback original; On Sale: Fall, 2003), the Girls focus their beady little eyes, and laser wit, on female stereotypes throughout the ages. Who isn't familiar with such stereotypes as the Old Maid, the Trophy Wife, the Vamp, or the Prostitute with a Heart of Gold? In BITCHES, BIMBOS, AND BALLBREAKERS , the Girls take on the maze of stereotypes that follow women from the cradle to the grave. With subversive humor and great visuals they explore the history and significance of each stereotype as well as its evolution and the various manifestations each have taken on through the ages. They tag the Top Types, examine sexual slurs, and delve into the lives of real and fictional women who have become stereotypes—from Aunt Jemima and Tokyo Rose to June Cleaver. The Guerrilla Girls' latest assault on injustice towards women will make people laugh, make them angry, and maybe, just maybe, make them change their minds. The wisecracking, but always clever style of the Guerrilla Girls makes BITCHES, BIMBOS, AND BALLBREAKERS both an entertaining and educational read that will appeal to readers of all genders and ages—provided they like a good laugh and a hearty dose of truth.

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