August 9, 2010 • 27 mins
Guerrilla Girls is a group of female artists/activists whose mission is to expose discrimination in the art world. In this episode, Molly and Cristen investigate and discuss the origins, activism and effectiveness of the Guerrilla Girls.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey Welt in the
podcast This is Molly, and then Kristin kristin today's episode.
(00:21):
Idea came from one of our listeners named Tanya, and
she wrote in that in all the podcasts we have done,
which is more than a hundred and fifty by now
you believe it, we have never discussed women in the
art world. And she was right, and so she suggested
we start with the Gorilla Girls as sort of way
of getting in to this discussion of women in the
art world. And I think we should clarify right now
(00:43):
that we're talking about gorillas as an guerrilla warfare, not gorillas,
even though the Gorilla girls dressed up in gorilla suits. Yeah,
I mean, I was about to say, you don't want
to mislead people too much because their name is g
U e r R l l A. But they wear
masks g O r I l l A. Yes, yes,
(01:08):
gorillas dressed up like gorillas. So we took her advice,
and what a wonderful podcast we have for you on
women in the arts and specifically who are the Gorilla Girls,
because we mentioned them in our podcasts on women directors
film directors. I think we gave them a little shout out.
(01:29):
But the Gorilla Girls got started because they got riled
up in about an exhibition entitled and International Survey of
Painting and Sculpture put on by the Museum of Modern
Art in New York UH and it was supposed to
be a survey of the most significant contemporary art in
all of the world. And according to this exhibit, um,
(01:54):
women weren't doing much because out of the hundred and
sixty nine artists that were on display at the moment,
only thirteen of them were women. And they also made
note that all of the artists were white from Europe
or the US, and so it was, you know, it
was just such a small spectrum of the world apparently
(02:16):
making all the significant art, and it, you know, it
just as Christen said, it riled them up. So at
first they just kind of you know, handed out some
you know, pamphlets, they had a picket line, but it
wasn't making any difference, Like no one noticed them. And
so what they decided to do was to make this
poster that pointed out this huge disparity, and they it
(02:40):
was very clever. They always use a lot of wit
when they're making posters. They went out at nights and
no one would see them wearing these guerrilla masks. So
no one knows them because apparently most of them have
jobs in the arts. Three the artists themselves, their curators,
they work in museums, and it's such a small world
that they didn't want to lose their jobs over this.
But they would go out a night in these men
us and poster and so you'd wake up one day
(03:03):
and everywhere you turn to New York there be a
post to reminding you that MoMA exhibits no art by women.
And it started really in NINETI. The Guerrilla girls uh
took off and since then they have you know, obviously
they started with UM visual Arts, but UM lately they've
(03:23):
been taking more of a stab to at the film
world as well. So just to give you an idea
what some of these posters are, Like, I printed off
two of my favorites. There was one from called The
Advantages of being a Woman Artist, and it's a list
of it looks like fifteen bullet points that come with
being a woman artist, such as like um working without
(03:45):
the pressure of success because women are still to get
much success, having an escape from the art world and
your four freelance jobs, knowing your career might pick up
after your eighty being reassured that whatever kind of art
you make it will be labeled feminine, not being stuck
in a tenured teaching position, being include included in revised
(04:06):
versions of art history, not having to undergo the embarrassment
of being called a genius. So you can see it's
very sarcastic, it's very cutting, it's um you know, it's
just a reminder that these women were not getting the
appreciation that the men were. Another example from nine nine
was called a bus companies are more enlightened than New
(04:26):
York City art galleries, and they looked at a bunch
of jobs and saw that the percentage of women in
jobs such as bus driving, carrying mail, driving trucks, and
welding was either more or very similar to the percentage
of women artists in the major New York City galleries.
So what they are doing is the posters always have
(04:47):
sort of a lot of data about ways in which
women are far outnumbered, and the gorilla girls sort of
set out to be what they called the conscience of
the art world. Yeah, they constantly call out the quote
stale male pale yale perspective on art history. Basically the
fact that you know, are all of our history art
(05:07):
history textbooks, UM, museums, galleries, it's always constantly exhibiting the
work um and revering the work of white guys essentially,
And it's just really a theme in a in a
in a lot of textbooks. But and another good point
that one of the posters was do you have to
be naked to get into this museum? Because the women
(05:28):
artists couldn't get in on the basis of their own work,
but they could get in if they were painted naked
by you know, some Renaissance painter, right, because the majority
of the nudes and museums obviously are are of women.
I like the fact that the Grilla girls also have
this kind of a cool anarchist flavor to them as well,
because not only do they ride around in uh in
(05:49):
guerrilla costumes and guerrilla mass but they also only go
under pseudonyms. They each choose UH female artists names to use. Um.
The one who popped up the most, who seems to
be kind of the default spokes Gorilla if you will,
is one who a woman who chose um Kathy Colwitz,
(06:11):
who is a German artist who lived from eighteen forty
five to nineteen My goodness, cowitz Um. That was her
pseudonym and her later on we find out from Jeffrey
Tuban from The New Yorker that her real name is
apparently Erica Rothenberger. But we couldn't confirm much else on
the internet, because, like you said, only these women are
(06:34):
very insistent on hiding their identities because they are in
the art world and they could kind of suffer some
pretty intense repercussions, uh if if they found if people
found out that they were guerrilla girls, even though now
guerrilla girls have kind of become an accepted part of
the art world, wouldn't you say yes? I would Christens,
(06:54):
something that New York Times made clear in a two
thousand four profile, because you know, the women would walk
around on guerrilla I'm asking, the children would know who
they were, and the people just at these museums would
know who they were. But this desire to be anonymous,
while it is protective in some ways, has also obviously
garnered them a lot of criticism because you know, these
collectors and these curators will say, you know, it's not
(07:15):
fair to just be charged with doing something wrong when
you don't know who you're being charged by, and you
know the nature of their criticism. Some say is so negative,
because yes, they can come up with this really funny
list of all the reasons that being a woman artist sucks,
or all the lists of the galleries who don't show
the men artists and why that sucks. But are they
(07:38):
offering constructive criticism or are they just running around in
guerilla suits getting attention for negative factors. Because one thing
I was struck by, uh when a girla girl didn't
interview with Fringe. They the interviewer, Lizzie Stark asked, you know,
who would you put in an exhibit of women artists
in the twentieth century? Who were the best? Who do
(07:59):
you like? And Kathy Coleworts refused to answer because she's like, oh,
there's too many to name, And to me that just
kind of seemed like a cop out, Like if you're
agenda is to promote women in the arts, then give
me some names. Like I'm ignorant about women in modern art,
like tell me who to to watch out for, and
(08:20):
I think that that's I think, I don't. I've been
going back and forth on it since we started researching
this podcast, because again that goes this goes into the
criticism of them. But if you're just saying put more
women in a museum, it's just a matter of numbers.
And guerrilla girls have been called quota queens, and we've
discussed before on this podcast, customer, how quota can be
a very dirty word. It's just it's quality versus quantity.
(08:42):
And the guerrilla girls, don't, you know, champion artists, They
just champion more women artists. But I will say there
was one really interesting point that Kathy Cole has made
that because these numbers are so different, because the difference
between male artists and women artist exhibiting galleries is so large,
that you can't even have this discussion about quality yet
(09:02):
because there's obviously some factor that's keeping women out of museum.
So we first got to increase the numbers before we
start talking about you know, is there a genius in
our you know, who were the great women artists of today? Etcetera, etcetera.
So what do you think about that, Kristin I talked
for quite a bit there. Well. I think that, um,
if anything as controversial as the Girl of Girls can be,
(09:27):
I think that no matter what, you have to give
them credit for their consciousness raising efforts, if you will, um,
whether or not you know, they promote specific female artists
in the right way or you know, the wrong way. UM,
I don't think that you can disagree with the fact
(09:48):
that it you know that it's good that they have
brought this issue to the forefront um in the art
world and have you know, really made people think a
lot about well, you know, who are re representing in
our galleries, who are re representing? Who are we representing
in these museums, in these um exhibitions. And I think
that this quote from Linda Shire, who was a curator
(10:11):
at the Museum of Modern Art and in the New
York Times kind of speaks to this aspect. She says,
in the last ten years and this was in Okay,
so this was a while ago, but it was also
when the Grilla Girls were really picking up steam. You know,
they had not only published all these uh printed out
all these posters, they had also published a book and
all of that and She says that in the last
(10:31):
ten years, but especially in the last five, there have
been many, many more women artists visible on the scene.
And it's partly a chicken egg thing. It's in the air,
but gorilla girls have been partly responsible for putting it
in the year UM. And so today, you know, twenty
years later, where are we UM. I think that maybe
(10:52):
I think you're right. I think that we do have
to move beyond just talking about sheer quotas to maybe
talking about deeper issues in terms of UM, what is
feminist art? Is feminist art important? And UM also whether
or not we should be so focused on UM, you know,
really promoting just women artists, you know, praising their work
(11:17):
as women artists, instead of focusing so much on quotas.
Maybe we need to look deeper into maybe the value
of feminist art and what does UM, what does women's art,
you know, what role does it play in the greater
spectrum of art history. For instance, there was some controversy
surrounding the National Women's Art Museum, wondering whether or not
(11:40):
we're just coordinating these artists off into their own kind
of pink hallway, if you will, instead of respecting them
along with their you know, the male greats as well.
And there was a Washington Post profile on that women's
art museum and they used to quote from Glorius Steynham
that I think maybe makes a lot of sense in
this context, in that if you're offered the choice, Gloria
(12:02):
I'm gonna paraphrase Gloria Stegn, but she said, if you're
offered the choice between this or that, between this being
a woman's art museum and that being an art museum
with both men and women, take both. I mean, you know,
that was sort of her permission that it is okay
to have a pink hallway, and I think that, uh,
you know, that's sort of It's It's interesting. It's something
(12:22):
that we've gone over again and again in this podcast
about whether by just pointing out that someone is female,
are we handicapping them versus are we pushing them to
be truly equal in the spectrum of men. Well In
the author from the from the journalists of the Washington
Post also pointed out that, um, while yes, there is
some you know there, there's a little bit of a
(12:44):
problem with having everything always designated off as the women's
this or the women's that, But for art, specifically for
visual art. Having this showcase of women's art is a
clear demonstration that we don't all make the same kinds
of things. You know, we're not you know, they're not
all painting bloody volvas if I if I may be graphic, um,
(13:08):
because that was a piece and in a woman's art show.
It's not like, yeah, it's not all it's not all
menstrual art. You know that we are very thinking, complex
people with varied interest just like you know, the museums
that might feature a lot more male artists. And I
think that that makes as much of a statement, a
powerful statement and a positive statement, um, than you know,
(13:31):
kind of the other choice like stein I was talking
about of being hung up alongside you know, uh, Decooning
and Picasso and Pollock and all the rest. Well, and
I did notice that most of the recent articles about
female artists, and we're not going to be able to
fully you know, go into this question today, Kristen. This
is you know, probably a topic for another time, but
(13:51):
you know, the question that it seems that's being grappled
with sort of under the surface, is whether art produced
by a female is different than art produced by a man.
All and some of these profiles in the Washington Post
sort of made the point that the females are, especially
in the recent decades, has been more political than it
is just so different from you know, Renaissance art or
(14:12):
Impressionism that how could you compare, How could you really
say that this needs to be next to that when
it's it's a different it's serving a different purpose. Well,
if we're talking about feminists art in particular, there was
a quote from um Jeremy Strick, who was the director
of the Museum of Contemporary Art in l a And
he says that the feminist art of the nineteen seventies
was the most influential international movement of any during the
(14:37):
post war period because their arguments and there are other
people other people in the art world who kind of
confirmed that agreed with that statement, and uh, and their
whole point was that feminine feminism kind of pushed back
against this art for art's stake attitude that was driven
in large part by male artists at the time, and
(14:58):
brought back the politics of um of art. And so
I think that that really puts the guerrilla girls in
some context, and that that that article you're citing Kristen
sort of made the point that women, because they were
in such a time of up people with the feminist movement,
didn't have time just to be art for artists for
our sake. It was about making a statement, and that
(15:19):
is what the Gorilla Girls do. Like we said, they
don't necessarily champion specific things, but they're making statements. They're raising,
you know, questions in your mind about what you're seeing,
and that is sort of what artists designed do. You're
designed to walk away thinking about something in a new way.
So by that extension, you know, just the the existence
(15:41):
of the Gorilla Girls is art in itself well. And
and for me, the kind of re examining this idea
of just feminist art because I don't think, um, you know,
I'm not trying to say that, you know, uh, every
every piece of artwork created by a female artist is
inherently um finist, but just this idea of feminist artwork
(16:04):
in general, um kind of made me think about it
in a in a little bit of a different light
because the Washington Post article points out that, um, you know,
the feminist artwork doesn't just deal with just the aspect
of women in terms of our relationship with our bodies,
but also just the fact that gender affects pretty much
(16:26):
everything in society, and and because of that, these artists
were attacking you know, not only bodies, but also class, race, consumerism,
the artwork are the art market, colonialism, politics, and cultural power.
Not to say that this isn't something that male artists
have been haven't been doing, but if the male artists
(16:46):
doing that very same thing has an easier time getting
in a museum then the female artists, then that would
be the inherent problem that the gorilla girls are trying
to fight again. Well, and it's different, and it's different
perspective too. I mean I think that, um, you know,
the point one of the purposes of great art is
to open your eyes to a different perspective on the world,
(17:06):
and if all those perspectives are not represented, then they
aren't really doing you justice these kinds of museums and galleries,
Which gets to the point about who is designing the
museums and galleries. And that's you know why I talked
earlier about the quality versus quiet issue that guerrilla girls
would say that because you know, we've got white males
putting these exhibits together. That's why it's a matter of
(17:29):
you know, numbers right now because they are so you know,
it's almost like they're looking for ways not to include
all those perspectives because you know, those perspectives are sort
of designed to not put them out of power, but
to question their power. So it's you know, it's really
reflective of a lot of things we've talked about over
the course of the podcast. But I want to talk
(17:51):
a little bit about the ninety one paper which did
a lot for the gorilla girls are on the scene
to make these curators think about what they were putting
on their walls. And that was a paper by Lynda
Knockland in Art Historian, and it was called why have
there been No Great Women Artists? Now, before we dive
into this more, I think that we do need to
(18:11):
point out that, um, you know, women have not received
as much credit where credit has been due in art
history simply because of certain um kind of cultural sidal
factors holding them back. For instance, with painters guilds in
the medieval and Renaissance periods, a lot of women worked
in these um workshop systems. However, the guild rules UM
(18:34):
would forbid women from either reaching the rank of master
and their works produced in the guilds would always be
signed by the male workshop masters. So there were, you know,
all of these works that were being created that wouldn't
be attributed to women. UM. A lot of women artists
back in the day would actually remain anonymous to protect
(18:56):
their identities. Or also there's you know, the issue of
you know, taking their husband's name, so uh, their their
work might be incorrectly credited um, just because of naming conventions.
So it's like when when we think about, you know,
why why we can't call out more of the um
more women artists throughout history, not just you know the
Genny Lassals and Adrian pipers today. But it might largely
(19:20):
be due to the fact that we are just underrepresented
from um lack of uh really just being allowed to
be UM recognized for it. And Knocklin kind of goes
into that in her introduction that there are a lot
of reasons why it would be hard for the female
equivalent of a Rembrandt or at Picasso to emerge. But
(19:43):
you know, where where are those people are? There are
those people out there at all? And so the paper
was sort of a plea to look at you know
who you're putting on the walls and why is it?
Is it a matter of just romanticizing these old male artists,
or are we genuinely overlooking good art? And so this
(20:04):
was published in Art News, and we found an article
from a few years ago where they were trying to
reconsider what had changed in the past thirty years since
the paper, you know, because now you may be able
to name a handful of female artists. But it gets
to this issue of quality versus quantity, which the Grilla
girls ignore. And they got a bunch of quotes from
(20:25):
people who said that actually the quality may not be
there compared to the male artists. I mean, here's one
quote from Marlo Prather, the curator of post war art
art at the Whitney. She writes, even when you pay
more attention to those careers that shouldn't have been lost
in the great shuff of art history, it doesn't necessarily
mean their estimation of the work increases. And here's another
(20:46):
one from Robert rosen Bloom, a professor of Modern European
art at New York University. He writes, every historical survey
I've done has had a lot of women artists in it,
but none of them are great, the way Picasso is great,
the way says On is great, and that is true
of them jarity of men artists. So there's still this
question of what is greatness, who is defining it? And
(21:10):
just to uh, you know, satisfy a definition, do we
need to include female perspectives or are they not there yet?
I mean I can just say from our listeners. Our
listeners have sentis in some amazing photos and clips of
works they've done. You have a lot of artistic listeners
so well, I feel like the women artists are out there.
Why are they still not being represented despite the fact
that we've got Gorilla Girls and Lynda Knockland saying look
(21:33):
for them. Well, I do think so that you know
that we can throw out some names that are you know,
repeatedly circulated in the art world. I mentioned Cindy Sherman earlier.
There's Barbara Krueger, Louise Lawler, Um, Adrian Piper, myle Lynn, uh,
Mariko Mori. There are a lot of women who are
out there doing and if you look at all of
(21:54):
their work side by side, I mean it's such a
broad spectrum of not mediums, but also uh perspectives and design.
Um so so sure, I mean, there's plenty of stuff there.
There is there's genius out there, you know, and it
seems like they're admitting that there's genius out there, but
(22:15):
still refusing to put it on the same level of
male genius. And well, because a lot of these curities
will also admit like, yeah, it's still kind of an
old boys club some of these um museums and uh
museums and galleries. And so then that's the question. It's
maybe like, well, who who controls super strings? That's true too,
(22:36):
genius defined by you know, which wealthy patron likes you
the most, probably, But I mean that goes back to
other issues. We've talked about women in business, and it
just seems that for being such a progressive field, art
is very behind in terms of gender equality, in terms
of investing in women artists, and and you know, you
just you keep going back to do we still need
(22:59):
women in realist suits putting up posters? And I would
say the answers yes. For all the criticism that can
be lobbed against the Gorilla Girls for being negative and
not champion specific artists and being all about the Q
word quota, I mean, there does come this point where
you can name off you can just you just rattled
off a bunch of women artists who aren't in a
(23:21):
lot of museums. Yeah, and uh, they prompted us to
chat for like thirty minutes about all of this stuff.
So yeah, do we need them absolutely, because if anything,
they're starting conversations, um, and they are you know, getting
getting us thinking about all these things. Because this was
this was a question that was raised in one of
the articles, and I think it's a good question to
to sort of end on. It's like, all right, listeners,
(23:44):
I want, you know, try to name your favorite um
female artists of the twentieth century and free to call
it is not allowed, you know, And now try to
you know, rattle off or name five, give me five,
and now rattle off five male artists. Is going to
be a lot easier to fill out those, you know,
the five columns for for men. I was telling Christmas
(24:06):
before we came in here that my theory is that
if we update the teenage mutant Ninja turtles to be females,
then we could probably possibly expose a lot more people
to women artists. Because I know that I first heard
about Leonardo from the Ninja Turtles. I first heard about
Donna Tello from Ninja Turtles. I mean it was obviously
I learned you know about their artwork much later. But
(24:26):
I feel like if if there were little kids running
around emulating free to Collo, that you know, we could
really I mean, I'm just I'm just saying, if you're
a book publisher out there, coming because I've got some
I've got some children's books ideas for a female equipment
of the Ninja Turtles that it's going to expand the
art world. I mean, O'Keefe doesn't have quite the same
ring as like O'Keefe go and should excite them with
(24:51):
big flowers. This is great and sexual overtones. I cannot
wait to see your new animated project. Molly. Well, obviously,
Molly and I are not We're not art experts, and
we really are not that deeply engaged in our world.
And I can only draw stick figures and those three
(25:12):
D cube things. I don't know about you, Molly, maybe
you're more artistic than I am. So I would love
to hear from our artists out there, both male and female.
Let us know what's going on and let us know
who we should be. Um who we should call out.
I think it would be great to um to get
a get a blog post together and start tweeting some
up and coming female artists. That people should keep an
(25:33):
eye out for a virtual Sminty art museum exactly for
my Ninja Turtle idea. Help me out with that, so
shoot us an email. The addresses Mom Stuff, how stuff
works dot Com and Molly. I think we've got time
for an email, right quick? Okay, Well, I've got an
email here from Jing. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Uh.
(25:57):
And this is in response to our episode on Football Finding,
and Jean says, my great grandmother had her feet bound,
but unlike in former times, her feet were not broken.
I don't remember her feet being extra tiny, and she
didn't wear Lotus shoes. Of course, since I saw her
last when I was four, I can't remember how small
her foot was. My grandmother on the other side of
the family, was told to bind her feet by her father,
(26:18):
but her mother was very strict about it, so she
often took the bandages off herself. Her foot turned out
very normal, so in her case, her foot was only
bound to discourage growth. Since she had to run away
with her school to escape the bombs during the Japanese
invasion of China when she was barely a teenager. I
have to say that it was very lucky her foot
was not bound. Also, I don't think you mentioned that
(26:39):
footbinding was practiced almost exclusively among the han Han ethnicity
in China. During China's last dynasty, the King Dynasty, the
ruling class was Manchuriant, not Han, and the emperor forbid
girls from buying their feet. The Mongolians and the many
other minority minority ethnicities in China did not practice foot
bind me certain ethnicities that did practice footbinding often didn't
(27:03):
break the bones of the feet, only discourage growth and
made the foot narrower. So thank you so much for
the informative email, and as always if you'd like to
send us informative emails. So if you've got an emails,
send it our away It's Mom stuff at how stuff
works dot com. We would love for you to become
a fan of us on Facebook. You can also follow
(27:24):
us on Twitter, and then finally you can check out
our blog stuff Mom Never Told You and It's found
it how stuff works dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Because at how stuff works
dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
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(27:50):
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?
From house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey Welt in the
podcast This is Molly, and then Kristin kristin today's episode.
(00:21):
Idea came from one of our listeners named Tanya, and
she wrote in that in all the podcasts we have done,
which is more than a hundred and fifty by now
you believe it, we have never discussed women in the
art world. And she was right, and so she suggested
we start with the Gorilla Girls as sort of way
of getting in to this discussion of women in the
art world. And I think we should clarify right now
(00:43):
that we're talking about gorillas as an guerrilla warfare, not gorillas,
even though the Gorilla girls dressed up in gorilla suits. Yeah,
I mean, I was about to say, you don't want
to mislead people too much because their name is g
U e r R l l A. But they wear
masks g O r I l l A. Yes, yes,
(01:08):
gorillas dressed up like gorillas. So we took her advice,
and what a wonderful podcast we have for you on
women in the arts and specifically who are the Gorilla Girls,
because we mentioned them in our podcasts on women directors
film directors. I think we gave them a little shout out.
(01:29):
But the Gorilla Girls got started because they got riled
up in about an exhibition entitled and International Survey of
Painting and Sculpture put on by the Museum of Modern
Art in New York UH and it was supposed to
be a survey of the most significant contemporary art in
all of the world. And according to this exhibit, um,
(01:54):
women weren't doing much because out of the hundred and
sixty nine artists that were on display at the moment,
only thirteen of them were women. And they also made
note that all of the artists were white from Europe
or the US, and so it was, you know, it
was just such a small spectrum of the world apparently
(02:16):
making all the significant art, and it, you know, it
just as Christen said, it riled them up. So at
first they just kind of you know, handed out some
you know, pamphlets, they had a picket line, but it
wasn't making any difference, Like no one noticed them. And
so what they decided to do was to make this
poster that pointed out this huge disparity, and they it
(02:40):
was very clever. They always use a lot of wit
when they're making posters. They went out at nights and
no one would see them wearing these guerrilla masks. So
no one knows them because apparently most of them have
jobs in the arts. Three the artists themselves, their curators,
they work in museums, and it's such a small world
that they didn't want to lose their jobs over this.
But they would go out a night in these men
us and poster and so you'd wake up one day
(03:03):
and everywhere you turn to New York there be a
post to reminding you that MoMA exhibits no art by women.
And it started really in NINETI. The Guerrilla girls uh
took off and since then they have you know, obviously
they started with UM visual Arts, but UM lately they've
(03:23):
been taking more of a stab to at the film
world as well. So just to give you an idea
what some of these posters are, Like, I printed off
two of my favorites. There was one from called The
Advantages of being a Woman Artist, and it's a list
of it looks like fifteen bullet points that come with
being a woman artist, such as like um working without
(03:45):
the pressure of success because women are still to get
much success, having an escape from the art world and
your four freelance jobs, knowing your career might pick up
after your eighty being reassured that whatever kind of art
you make it will be labeled feminine, not being stuck
in a tenured teaching position, being include included in revised
(04:06):
versions of art history, not having to undergo the embarrassment
of being called a genius. So you can see it's
very sarcastic, it's very cutting, it's um you know, it's
just a reminder that these women were not getting the
appreciation that the men were. Another example from nine nine
was called a bus companies are more enlightened than New
(04:26):
York City art galleries, and they looked at a bunch
of jobs and saw that the percentage of women in
jobs such as bus driving, carrying mail, driving trucks, and
welding was either more or very similar to the percentage
of women artists in the major New York City galleries.
So what they are doing is the posters always have
(04:47):
sort of a lot of data about ways in which
women are far outnumbered, and the gorilla girls sort of
set out to be what they called the conscience of
the art world. Yeah, they constantly call out the quote
stale male pale yale perspective on art history. Basically the
fact that you know, are all of our history art
(05:07):
history textbooks, UM, museums, galleries, it's always constantly exhibiting the
work um and revering the work of white guys essentially,
And it's just really a theme in a in a
in a lot of textbooks. But and another good point
that one of the posters was do you have to
be naked to get into this museum? Because the women
(05:28):
artists couldn't get in on the basis of their own work,
but they could get in if they were painted naked
by you know, some Renaissance painter, right, because the majority
of the nudes and museums obviously are are of women.
I like the fact that the Grilla girls also have
this kind of a cool anarchist flavor to them as well,
because not only do they ride around in uh in
(05:49):
guerrilla costumes and guerrilla mass but they also only go
under pseudonyms. They each choose UH female artists names to use. Um.
The one who popped up the most, who seems to
be kind of the default spokes Gorilla if you will,
is one who a woman who chose um Kathy Colwitz,
(06:11):
who is a German artist who lived from eighteen forty
five to nineteen My goodness, cowitz Um. That was her
pseudonym and her later on we find out from Jeffrey
Tuban from The New Yorker that her real name is
apparently Erica Rothenberger. But we couldn't confirm much else on
the internet, because, like you said, only these women are
(06:34):
very insistent on hiding their identities because they are in
the art world and they could kind of suffer some
pretty intense repercussions, uh if if they found if people
found out that they were guerrilla girls, even though now
guerrilla girls have kind of become an accepted part of
the art world, wouldn't you say yes? I would Christens,
(06:54):
something that New York Times made clear in a two
thousand four profile, because you know, the women would walk
around on guerrilla I'm asking, the children would know who
they were, and the people just at these museums would
know who they were. But this desire to be anonymous,
while it is protective in some ways, has also obviously
garnered them a lot of criticism because you know, these
collectors and these curators will say, you know, it's not
(07:15):
fair to just be charged with doing something wrong when
you don't know who you're being charged by, and you
know the nature of their criticism. Some say is so negative,
because yes, they can come up with this really funny
list of all the reasons that being a woman artist sucks,
or all the lists of the galleries who don't show
the men artists and why that sucks. But are they
(07:38):
offering constructive criticism or are they just running around in
guerilla suits getting attention for negative factors. Because one thing
I was struck by, uh when a girla girl didn't
interview with Fringe. They the interviewer, Lizzie Stark asked, you know,
who would you put in an exhibit of women artists
in the twentieth century? Who were the best? Who do
(07:59):
you like? And Kathy Coleworts refused to answer because she's like, oh,
there's too many to name, And to me that just
kind of seemed like a cop out, Like if you're
agenda is to promote women in the arts, then give
me some names. Like I'm ignorant about women in modern art,
like tell me who to to watch out for, and
(08:20):
I think that that's I think, I don't. I've been
going back and forth on it since we started researching
this podcast, because again that goes this goes into the
criticism of them. But if you're just saying put more
women in a museum, it's just a matter of numbers.
And guerrilla girls have been called quota queens, and we've
discussed before on this podcast, customer, how quota can be
a very dirty word. It's just it's quality versus quantity.
(08:42):
And the guerrilla girls, don't, you know, champion artists, They
just champion more women artists. But I will say there
was one really interesting point that Kathy Cole has made
that because these numbers are so different, because the difference
between male artists and women artist exhibiting galleries is so large,
that you can't even have this discussion about quality yet
(09:02):
because there's obviously some factor that's keeping women out of museum.
So we first got to increase the numbers before we
start talking about you know, is there a genius in
our you know, who were the great women artists of today? Etcetera, etcetera.
So what do you think about that, Kristin I talked
for quite a bit there. Well. I think that, um,
if anything as controversial as the Girl of Girls can be,
(09:27):
I think that no matter what, you have to give
them credit for their consciousness raising efforts, if you will, um,
whether or not you know, they promote specific female artists
in the right way or you know, the wrong way. UM,
I don't think that you can disagree with the fact
(09:48):
that it you know that it's good that they have
brought this issue to the forefront um in the art
world and have you know, really made people think a
lot about well, you know, who are re representing in
our galleries, who are re representing? Who are we representing
in these museums, in these um exhibitions. And I think
that this quote from Linda Shire, who was a curator
(10:11):
at the Museum of Modern Art and in the New
York Times kind of speaks to this aspect. She says,
in the last ten years and this was in Okay,
so this was a while ago, but it was also
when the Grilla Girls were really picking up steam. You know,
they had not only published all these uh printed out
all these posters, they had also published a book and
all of that and She says that in the last
(10:31):
ten years, but especially in the last five, there have
been many, many more women artists visible on the scene.
And it's partly a chicken egg thing. It's in the air,
but gorilla girls have been partly responsible for putting it
in the year UM. And so today, you know, twenty
years later, where are we UM. I think that maybe
(10:52):
I think you're right. I think that we do have
to move beyond just talking about sheer quotas to maybe
talking about deeper issues in terms of UM, what is
feminist art? Is feminist art important? And UM also whether
or not we should be so focused on UM, you know,
really promoting just women artists, you know, praising their work
(11:17):
as women artists, instead of focusing so much on quotas.
Maybe we need to look deeper into maybe the value
of feminist art and what does UM, what does women's art,
you know, what role does it play in the greater
spectrum of art history. For instance, there was some controversy
surrounding the National Women's Art Museum, wondering whether or not
(11:40):
we're just coordinating these artists off into their own kind
of pink hallway, if you will, instead of respecting them
along with their you know, the male greats as well.
And there was a Washington Post profile on that women's
art museum and they used to quote from Glorius Steynham
that I think maybe makes a lot of sense in
this context, in that if you're offered the choice, Gloria
(12:02):
I'm gonna paraphrase Gloria Stegn, but she said, if you're
offered the choice between this or that, between this being
a woman's art museum and that being an art museum
with both men and women, take both. I mean, you know,
that was sort of her permission that it is okay
to have a pink hallway, and I think that, uh,
you know, that's sort of It's It's interesting. It's something
(12:22):
that we've gone over again and again in this podcast
about whether by just pointing out that someone is female,
are we handicapping them versus are we pushing them to
be truly equal in the spectrum of men. Well In
the author from the from the journalists of the Washington
Post also pointed out that, um, while yes, there is
some you know there, there's a little bit of a
(12:44):
problem with having everything always designated off as the women's
this or the women's that, But for art, specifically for
visual art. Having this showcase of women's art is a
clear demonstration that we don't all make the same kinds
of things. You know, we're not you know, they're not
all painting bloody volvas if I if I may be graphic, um,
(13:08):
because that was a piece and in a woman's art show.
It's not like, yeah, it's not all it's not all
menstrual art. You know that we are very thinking, complex
people with varied interest just like you know, the museums
that might feature a lot more male artists. And I
think that that makes as much of a statement, a
powerful statement and a positive statement, um, than you know,
(13:31):
kind of the other choice like stein I was talking
about of being hung up alongside you know, uh, Decooning
and Picasso and Pollock and all the rest. Well, and
I did notice that most of the recent articles about
female artists, and we're not going to be able to
fully you know, go into this question today, Kristen. This
is you know, probably a topic for another time, but
(13:51):
you know, the question that it seems that's being grappled
with sort of under the surface, is whether art produced
by a female is different than art produced by a man.
All and some of these profiles in the Washington Post
sort of made the point that the females are, especially
in the recent decades, has been more political than it
is just so different from you know, Renaissance art or
(14:12):
Impressionism that how could you compare, How could you really
say that this needs to be next to that when
it's it's a different it's serving a different purpose. Well,
if we're talking about feminists art in particular, there was
a quote from um Jeremy Strick, who was the director
of the Museum of Contemporary Art in l a And
he says that the feminist art of the nineteen seventies
was the most influential international movement of any during the
(14:37):
post war period because their arguments and there are other
people other people in the art world who kind of
confirmed that agreed with that statement, and uh, and their
whole point was that feminine feminism kind of pushed back
against this art for art's stake attitude that was driven
in large part by male artists at the time, and
(14:58):
brought back the politics of um of art. And so
I think that that really puts the guerrilla girls in
some context, and that that that article you're citing Kristen
sort of made the point that women, because they were
in such a time of up people with the feminist movement,
didn't have time just to be art for artists for
our sake. It was about making a statement, and that
(15:19):
is what the Gorilla Girls do. Like we said, they
don't necessarily champion specific things, but they're making statements. They're raising,
you know, questions in your mind about what you're seeing,
and that is sort of what artists designed do. You're
designed to walk away thinking about something in a new way.
So by that extension, you know, just the the existence
(15:41):
of the Gorilla Girls is art in itself well. And
and for me, the kind of re examining this idea
of just feminist art because I don't think, um, you know,
I'm not trying to say that, you know, uh, every
every piece of artwork created by a female artist is
inherently um finist, but just this idea of feminist artwork
(16:04):
in general, um kind of made me think about it
in a in a little bit of a different light
because the Washington Post article points out that, um, you know,
the feminist artwork doesn't just deal with just the aspect
of women in terms of our relationship with our bodies,
but also just the fact that gender affects pretty much
(16:26):
everything in society, and and because of that, these artists
were attacking you know, not only bodies, but also class, race, consumerism,
the artwork are the art market, colonialism, politics, and cultural power.
Not to say that this isn't something that male artists
have been haven't been doing, but if the male artists
(16:46):
doing that very same thing has an easier time getting
in a museum then the female artists, then that would
be the inherent problem that the gorilla girls are trying
to fight again. Well, and it's different, and it's different
perspective too. I mean I think that, um, you know,
the point one of the purposes of great art is
to open your eyes to a different perspective on the world,
(17:06):
and if all those perspectives are not represented, then they
aren't really doing you justice these kinds of museums and galleries,
Which gets to the point about who is designing the
museums and galleries. And that's you know why I talked
earlier about the quality versus quiet issue that guerrilla girls
would say that because you know, we've got white males
putting these exhibits together. That's why it's a matter of
(17:29):
you know, numbers right now because they are so you know,
it's almost like they're looking for ways not to include
all those perspectives because you know, those perspectives are sort
of designed to not put them out of power, but
to question their power. So it's you know, it's really
reflective of a lot of things we've talked about over
the course of the podcast. But I want to talk
(17:51):
a little bit about the ninety one paper which did
a lot for the gorilla girls are on the scene
to make these curators think about what they were putting
on their walls. And that was a paper by Lynda
Knockland in Art Historian, and it was called why have
there been No Great Women Artists? Now, before we dive
into this more, I think that we do need to
(18:11):
point out that, um, you know, women have not received
as much credit where credit has been due in art
history simply because of certain um kind of cultural sidal
factors holding them back. For instance, with painters guilds in
the medieval and Renaissance periods, a lot of women worked
in these um workshop systems. However, the guild rules UM
(18:34):
would forbid women from either reaching the rank of master
and their works produced in the guilds would always be
signed by the male workshop masters. So there were, you know,
all of these works that were being created that wouldn't
be attributed to women. UM. A lot of women artists
back in the day would actually remain anonymous to protect
(18:56):
their identities. Or also there's you know, the issue of
you know, taking their husband's name, so uh, their their
work might be incorrectly credited um, just because of naming conventions.
So it's like when when we think about, you know,
why why we can't call out more of the um
more women artists throughout history, not just you know the
Genny Lassals and Adrian pipers today. But it might largely
(19:20):
be due to the fact that we are just underrepresented
from um lack of uh really just being allowed to
be UM recognized for it. And Knocklin kind of goes
into that in her introduction that there are a lot
of reasons why it would be hard for the female
equivalent of a Rembrandt or at Picasso to emerge. But
(19:43):
you know, where where are those people are? There are
those people out there at all? And so the paper
was sort of a plea to look at you know
who you're putting on the walls and why is it?
Is it a matter of just romanticizing these old male artists,
or are we genuinely overlooking good art? And so this
(20:04):
was published in Art News, and we found an article
from a few years ago where they were trying to
reconsider what had changed in the past thirty years since
the paper, you know, because now you may be able
to name a handful of female artists. But it gets
to this issue of quality versus quantity, which the Grilla
girls ignore. And they got a bunch of quotes from
(20:25):
people who said that actually the quality may not be
there compared to the male artists. I mean, here's one
quote from Marlo Prather, the curator of post war art
art at the Whitney. She writes, even when you pay
more attention to those careers that shouldn't have been lost
in the great shuff of art history, it doesn't necessarily
mean their estimation of the work increases. And here's another
(20:46):
one from Robert rosen Bloom, a professor of Modern European
art at New York University. He writes, every historical survey
I've done has had a lot of women artists in it,
but none of them are great, the way Picasso is great,
the way says On is great, and that is true
of them jarity of men artists. So there's still this
question of what is greatness, who is defining it? And
(21:10):
just to uh, you know, satisfy a definition, do we
need to include female perspectives or are they not there yet?
I mean I can just say from our listeners. Our
listeners have sentis in some amazing photos and clips of
works they've done. You have a lot of artistic listeners
so well, I feel like the women artists are out there.
Why are they still not being represented despite the fact
that we've got Gorilla Girls and Lynda Knockland saying look
(21:33):
for them. Well, I do think so that you know
that we can throw out some names that are you know,
repeatedly circulated in the art world. I mentioned Cindy Sherman earlier.
There's Barbara Krueger, Louise Lawler, Um, Adrian Piper, myle Lynn, uh,
Mariko Mori. There are a lot of women who are
out there doing and if you look at all of
(21:54):
their work side by side, I mean it's such a
broad spectrum of not mediums, but also uh perspectives and design.
Um so so sure, I mean, there's plenty of stuff there.
There is there's genius out there, you know, and it
seems like they're admitting that there's genius out there, but
(22:15):
still refusing to put it on the same level of
male genius. And well, because a lot of these curities
will also admit like, yeah, it's still kind of an
old boys club some of these um museums and uh
museums and galleries. And so then that's the question. It's
maybe like, well, who who controls super strings? That's true too,
(22:36):
genius defined by you know, which wealthy patron likes you
the most, probably, But I mean that goes back to
other issues. We've talked about women in business, and it
just seems that for being such a progressive field, art
is very behind in terms of gender equality, in terms
of investing in women artists, and and you know, you
just you keep going back to do we still need
(22:59):
women in realist suits putting up posters? And I would
say the answers yes. For all the criticism that can
be lobbed against the Gorilla Girls for being negative and
not champion specific artists and being all about the Q
word quota, I mean, there does come this point where
you can name off you can just you just rattled
off a bunch of women artists who aren't in a
(23:21):
lot of museums. Yeah, and uh, they prompted us to
chat for like thirty minutes about all of this stuff.
So yeah, do we need them absolutely, because if anything,
they're starting conversations, um, and they are you know, getting
getting us thinking about all these things. Because this was
this was a question that was raised in one of
the articles, and I think it's a good question to
to sort of end on. It's like, all right, listeners,
(23:44):
I want, you know, try to name your favorite um
female artists of the twentieth century and free to call
it is not allowed, you know, And now try to
you know, rattle off or name five, give me five,
and now rattle off five male artists. Is going to
be a lot easier to fill out those, you know,
the five columns for for men. I was telling Christmas
(24:06):
before we came in here that my theory is that
if we update the teenage mutant Ninja turtles to be females,
then we could probably possibly expose a lot more people
to women artists. Because I know that I first heard
about Leonardo from the Ninja Turtles. I first heard about
Donna Tello from Ninja Turtles. I mean it was obviously
I learned you know about their artwork much later. But
(24:26):
I feel like if if there were little kids running
around emulating free to Collo, that you know, we could
really I mean, I'm just I'm just saying, if you're
a book publisher out there, coming because I've got some
I've got some children's books ideas for a female equipment
of the Ninja Turtles that it's going to expand the
art world. I mean, O'Keefe doesn't have quite the same
ring as like O'Keefe go and should excite them with
(24:51):
big flowers. This is great and sexual overtones. I cannot
wait to see your new animated project. Molly. Well, obviously,
Molly and I are not We're not art experts, and
we really are not that deeply engaged in our world.
And I can only draw stick figures and those three
(25:12):
D cube things. I don't know about you, Molly, maybe
you're more artistic than I am. So I would love
to hear from our artists out there, both male and female.
Let us know what's going on and let us know
who we should be. Um who we should call out.
I think it would be great to um to get
a get a blog post together and start tweeting some
up and coming female artists. That people should keep an
(25:33):
eye out for a virtual Sminty art museum exactly for
my Ninja Turtle idea. Help me out with that, so
shoot us an email. The addresses Mom Stuff, how stuff
works dot Com and Molly. I think we've got time
for an email, right quick? Okay, Well, I've got an
email here from Jing. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Uh.
(25:57):
And this is in response to our episode on Football Finding,
and Jean says, my great grandmother had her feet bound,
but unlike in former times, her feet were not broken.
I don't remember her feet being extra tiny, and she
didn't wear Lotus shoes. Of course, since I saw her
last when I was four, I can't remember how small
her foot was. My grandmother on the other side of
the family, was told to bind her feet by her father,
(26:18):
but her mother was very strict about it, so she
often took the bandages off herself. Her foot turned out
very normal, so in her case, her foot was only
bound to discourage growth. Since she had to run away
with her school to escape the bombs during the Japanese
invasion of China when she was barely a teenager. I
have to say that it was very lucky her foot
was not bound. Also, I don't think you mentioned that
(26:39):
footbinding was practiced almost exclusively among the han Han ethnicity
in China. During China's last dynasty, the King Dynasty, the
ruling class was Manchuriant, not Han, and the emperor forbid
girls from buying their feet. The Mongolians and the many
other minority minority ethnicities in China did not practice foot
bind me certain ethnicities that did practice footbinding often didn't
(27:03):
break the bones of the feet, only discourage growth and
made the foot narrower. So thank you so much for
the informative email, and as always if you'd like to
send us informative emails. So if you've got an emails,
send it our away It's Mom stuff at how stuff
works dot com. We would love for you to become
a fan of us on Facebook. You can also follow
(27:24):
us on Twitter, and then finally you can check out
our blog stuff Mom Never Told You and It's found
it how stuff works dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Because at how stuff works
dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
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(27:50):
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