-
-["Frida" VO] There's nothing worse than the word
-
"art appreciation."
-
It implies that you're
just there awestruck,
-
and whatever you're
being fed, you appreciate.
-
Art really is about
discourse and about discussion.
-
-["Frida"] Do you have any
ideas what museums could be?
-
-Decolonizing museums.
-
Like, not having stolen things.
-
-If your art is for the public,
then the public should have a
-
right to express
their opinions and views.
-
-As a young artist, like,
sometimes I see things and,
-
like, get so frustrated and
feel like nothing has changed.
-
♪♪♪
-
-["Frida" VO]
From the very beginning,
-
we have been
fighting against sexism,
-
racism, and the death
hold that wealthy people
-
and wealthy institutions
have on art and culture.
-
-40 million dollars, 1-5-0-6.
-
-The Guerrilla Girls will
complain about anything that
-
pisses them off, and they always
do it in an unexpected way.
-
-[Coco VO] What the artist has
to say about things other than
-
his or her art has not always
been considered that important
-
by the arbiters
of the art world.
-
And the Guerrilla Girls were
at the forefront of doing that
-
starting in the 1980s.
-
-[Frances] The power of the Guerrilla
Girls' work was that whenever I
-
looked at their
material, I felt implicated.
-
It wasn't somebody else's
problem, it was my problem.
-
♪♪♪
-
-["Frida"] I'm one of
the founding members of the
-
Guerrilla Girls, and I've
been involved in just about
-
everything the Guerrilla
Girls have done since 1985.
-
I'm kind of a lifer.
-
But I am, in my
real life, an artist.
-
-["Käthe"] And I'm also a
founder of the Guerrilla Girls
-
and also a lifelong
political artist.
-
♪elegant orchestral music♪
-
In fall of 1984, the Museum of
Modern Art did this exhibition
-
– an international survey
of painting and sculpture.
-
There were 169
artists in the show,
-
and only 17 women, and
very few artists of color.
-
And women artists in New
York were really pissed off.
-
♪aggressive rock music♪
-
-["Frida"] We were educated
to sort of respect all
-
the institutions and the people
that were making decisions and
-
the people who were
writing art history,
-
but it dawned on us that it was
filled with its own biases and
-
limitations.
-
-["Käthe"] We're marching
in a picket line in front of
-
the Museum of Modern Art, and
we realize not one person going
-
into the museum cares.
-
[music slows to a stop]
-
And that was the "aha" moment.
-
It was so clear that
there had to be a better way
-
to convince people and
make them understand how much
-
discrimination there really was
– both racism and sexism –
-
in the art world.
-
♪moody synth music♪
-
-Most of the women who are doing
all the bitching are completely talentless.
-
For example, like,
the top women artists,
-
you don't hear them making these
embarrassing feminist pleas.
-
-["Frida"] The more we
looked at the numbers,
-
we realized that there was a
systematic elimination of women
-
and artists of color from the
so-called mainstream of the art world.
-
-[Guerrilla Girl] What does it
mean that museums are getting
-
subsidies and have no
obligations to be ethnically diverse?
-
-["Frida"] We thought it
would be really important to
-
just state the facts
-
and see what people
did with the facts.
-
We met at my loft, and we were
just a hodgepodge of artists.
-
We called ourselves "the
Guerrilla Girls" because we had
-
to become anonymous to
say what was obvious.
-
♪♪♪
-
Kathë and I came up
with the two first posters.
-
The very first poster was this
list of male artists who allowed
-
their work to be shown in
galleries that showed fewer than
-
10 percent women or none at all.
-
-[Kathë VO] When one
worked, we would do another.
-
When another worked,
we would do another.
-
The facts are a hugely
important part of it.
-
But also, we had this
kind of outrageous,
-
in-your-face design and crazy
headlines that you couldn't
-
totally ignore.
-
We passed the hat
around to pay for printing.
-
We were sneaking around New
York in the middle of the night
-
putting these things up.
-
And people saw them
and all hell broke loose.
-
♪energizing
electronic music♪
-
We mostly did them in
SoHo and the East Village,
-
which were the big art
neighborhoods of that time.
-
So we put these posters up on
the gallery windows right below
-
the name of the gallery.
-
♪♪♪
-
-["Frida" VO] It was so
exciting to go out the next day
-
and to see a
dialogue being ignited.
-
♪♪♪
-
I remember a gallery director
came by with her son,
-
and he singsong-edly sang,
-
"Mommy, why is
your name up there?"
-
[laughs]
-
-If you look at the art schools,
at least half of them are women.
-
So what happens to these women?
-
Where do they go?
-
But that's not the art
world discriminating,
-
that's their choices.
-
♪ethereal synth music♪
-
-["Frida" VO] The advantages
of being a woman artist:
-
Working without
the pressure of success.
-
Not having to be
in shows with men.
-
Having a relief from the art
world with your four freelance jobs.
-
Being reassured
that whatever work you make,
-
it will be labeled "feminine."
-
Knowing your career might
pick up after you're 80.
-
Over the years, about 60 people
were in and out of the group.
-
Collaboration was
wonderful when it worked.
-
It was painful
when it didn't work.
-
We didn't understand
where it would go,
-
but we knew that
what we were saying,
-
moment to moment,
-
was something
that was irrefutable.
-
♪♪♪
-
-I'm kind of new on the
scene here but I love it.
-
-["Frida"] Well, do you ever
think to count how many women,
-
how many artists of color?
-
-[woman] Oh, absolutely.
-["Frida"] Yeah.
-
And does that change
your attitude or your idea?
-
-[woman] It has a
lot, and the idea,
-
I think that's
why maybe my
-
mother and grandmother were
never really that interested.
-
Because they didn't see anything
that was done by people that
-
looked like them.
-
♪sparse ethereal music♪
-
-["Frida" VO] I always
felt distance from the
-
socioeconomics in the art world.
-
I grew up in Pittsburgh
in a working-class family.
-
There was a lot of trauma in
my family with parents dying
-
and getting sick, and I
had a lot to take care of,
-
so I really never felt
the freedom to rebel
-
in my adolescence.
-
-["Käthe" VO] I grew
up in New York City.
-
I was an activist in my teens,
-
and I got kicked out of college
for being in a demonstration,
-
and that kind of
pushing the envelope
-
has always been my life, and
it's always been the kind of art
-
I do.
-
♪♪♪
-
-["Frida"] I was always
uncomfortable with this idea
-
that there was a
level playing field,
-
because it was not my experience
in life or in the art world.
-
So the minute I felt
the freedom to criticize it,
-
it was wonderful, it was great,
it opened up a whole part of my brain.
-
♪quirky upbeat music♪
-
-["Käthe"] I couldn't stop.
-
I can't explain why,
but I couldn't stop.
-
And it became as important to
me as anything else I did in my life.
-
♪♪♪
-
-["Käthe"] Those of us who
were unfairly left out of
-
the system, it was like
a breath of fresh air.
-
It was so-- it seemed
daring, it seemed exciting,
-
and the people on the
posters were really pissed off.
-
-[Guerrilla Girl] They now feel
they have to contend with us as
-
a power.
-
And it's very bizarre to be at a
point where I get more respect
-
with a gorilla mask on
than I get with it off.
-
♪energetic percussion♪
-
-[Frances VO] In 2006, we
had, at The Tate Modern,
-
a small room with a group of
the Guerrilla Girls' posters.
-
But I was put on the back foot
by journalists grilling me about
-
precisely what the Guerrilla
Girls were charging us with –
-
lack of representation
of women artists,
-
lack of diversity –
-
and I had no way
of responding.
-
My inability to respond was
published in The Guardian.
-
I felt profoundly
exposed, profoundly embarrassed.
-
And in that moment, the
Guerrilla Girls' wonderful pink
-
letter really resonated with me
-- that idea that I had agency
-
in this and I had to
take some responsibility.
-
-["Frida" VO]
[echoing] Dearest art collector,
-
it has come to our
attention that your collection,
-
like most, does not
contain enough art by women.
-
We know that you feel
terrible about this
-
and will rectify the
situation immediately.
-
All our love, Guerrilla Girls.
-
-[Frances VO] About a year later, I took over
the leadership of building the
-
international collection,
and I presented a strategy to
-
massively broaden the
diversity of the collection,
-
and to really address the
representation of women.
-
That moment with the
Guerrilla Girls was profoundly influential.
-
♪♪♪
-
-["Frida" VO] There are
wonderful individuals on the
-
inside trying to change things.
-
But there is a
corporate, capitalist,
-
institutional structure that's
connected to much larger forces.
-
-["Zubeida"] Right now, art
institutions do not get enough
-
government funding, and so
they're reliant on individuals
-
to donate to them to make
art exhibitions happen.
-
A lot of the people are very
wealthy individuals for whom art
-
is an investment asset, and so
they will support exhibitions
-
that raise the value of
their art collection.
-
I feel like in
any other industry,
-
that would be considered
insider trading or something,
-
but it's not.
-
-["Frida" VO] [echoing]
Guerrilla Girls' Code of Ethics
-
for Art Museums:
-
Thou shalt not give more than
three retrospectives to any
-
artist whose dealer is the
brother of the chief curator.
-
Thou shalt provide lavish
funerals for women and artists
-
of color, who thou planneth to
exhibit only after their death.
-
-[Käthe VO] We did a whole
series of these posters.
-
After many years, we thought it
would be great to do an updated
-
version and build
the actual monument
-
and drag it around to every
museum we could possibly get to.
-
-["Frida" VO] [echoing] Thou
shalt honor all thine employees,
-
never undermine
their efforts to unionize,
-
and pay them a living wage.
-
Thou shalt banish board members
who make the world a worse place.
-
If thou exhibiteth
super-expensive art bought at
-
super-fancy galleries and
donated by super-rich collectors
-
for super-big tax deductions,
thou must renameth thyself
-
The Museum of
Super-Rich People's Art.
-
-[Käthe] Everybody,
this is a monument we think
-
needs to be outside
every single museum.
-
So who wants to talk?
-
-The public has
no say whatsoever;
-
they just go and
look at the art.
-
What these museums are doing is
they've basically turned it into
-
a business.
-
-[Käthe] You are now
an honorary Guerrilla Girl.
-
-[man] Oh, really?
-[Käthe] Yes.
-
-Thank you.
-
-Now, I think, in a lot
of these institutions,
-
they've, like, clung onto the
fact that it's trendy to be,
-
like, putting art out there that
is promoting social justice,
-
but when you look at what
they're actually doing in
-
practice, it doesn't
support those ideals.
-
-["Frida"] Oh, I agree.
-
We think that trustees should
be chosen who make the world a
-
better place.
-
What did you see in
the museum today?
-
-Oh, we didn't go in.
-We are yet to go in.
-
-We came to meet you first.
-["Frida"] [gasps]
-
-Yeah.
-["Frida"] Oh, that's so great!
-
-[woman] Yeah, we saw
it on your Instagram!
-
-["Frida"]
Thank you so much!
-
-I consider my
art Guerrilla art.
-
Well, like, I, like, put a
poster up in my city in India
-
and stuff like that
about mental health.
-
-["Frida"] That's wonderful!
-["Käthe"] Fantastic.
-
-This is great.
Oh my gosh.
-
-[woman] Thank you,
thank you so much!
-
-I took, like, 15.
-Aw, thank you.
-
-["Käthe"] We've been so
lucky that people all over the
-
world want our work.
-
♪ambient
oscillating synths♪
-
-["Zubeida" VO] The
Guerrilla Girls' work has always
-
been statistics.
-
People don't believe you unless
you show them the numbers.
-
♪♪♪
-
Without the numbers, you really
have a false sense of diversity.
-
-["Frida" VO] For the
last 20, 25, 30 years,
-
we get people saying to us,
-
"I never knew this before."
-
Our stuff is easy to understand,
-
and then you take off with it on your own.
-
-I've been teaching
now for almost 30 years.
-
I make sure that my students are
aware of the Guerrilla Girls' contributions.
-
They get museum
shows in Europe,
-
not so much in
the United States.
-
I think that that's an
indication of the resistance
-
still to the practice and to the
message of the Guerrilla Girls,
-
despite the fact that
there are probably, you know,
-
200 art history majors writing
papers on them right now.
-
-["Zubeida" VO] One of the
most exciting things for me has
-
been the shift where the younger
generation are learning about
-
the Guerrilla Girls earlier
and earlier -- in high school,
-
or they saw the
work on social media.
-
It gives me a lot of hope.
-
It gives me a lot of hope.
-
-["Frida"] Bye-bye!
-
And I hope you find things
that you love to look at!
-
Can't we think about
art as not being about
-
winners, but about something
that we all need in our lives?
-
Thank you so much, and good
luck with your own work!
-
-[man] This is a big
moment in my life!
-
Yay!
-
-["Frida"] There are so
many cultural traditions where
-
art is collective, and
it's done in a community,
-
and artists work together.
-
They might do individual work,
-
but they somehow present a
kinder idea of what it means
-
to have a creative life.
-
♪♪♪
-
["Käthe"] Come over!
-
♪ ethereal ambient music ♪