Guerrilla Girls in “Bodies of Knowledge”

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Clad in all-black, their faces obscured by oversized gorilla masks, “Frida Kahlo” and “Käthe Kollwitz” take to the streets as Guerrilla Girls to engage the public in their decades-long battle against discrimination in the art world. “Kahlo” and “Kollwitz,” pseudonyms adopted by the artists while acting as Guerrilla Girls, have been members of the artist-activist collective since its founding in 1985. Tracing the story of Guerilla Girls through nearly four decades of art and activism, this film explores the continued relevance and impact of their fight for equality. 

Responding to the exclusion of women artists and artists of color from the art world and its institutions, Guerrilla Girls came together in search of new ways to call attention to discrimination. The collective began making posters with salacious headlines and bold designs, pasting them to buildings and gallery windows in New York City’s East Village and SoHo neighborhoods. On these posters, the collective shared publicly accessible statistics that served as irrefutable evidence that gallerists, critics, artists, and museums participated in the exclusion of women and people of color. These spectacular critical gestures have solidified Guerrilla Girls’ reputation as a force to be reckoned with among art world stakeholders. As their work became a sign of hope for many artists and art professionals, it also became a source of anxiety for the individuals and institutions they called attention to. 

In 1989, Guerrilla Girls created a code of ethics they believe should be installed outside every art museum — their Guerrilla Girls’ Code of Ethics for Art Museums. Initially conceived of as a poster with ten commandments for art museums that satirize the systemic inequalities perpetuated by arts institutions, in 2022 Guerrilla Girls’ dictates now appear ‘etched in stone’ on an imitation stele. Wheeling their new monument in front of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, “Kahlo” and “Kollwitz” use the code of ethics as a conversation starter, engaging museum-goers and passersby in a dialogue about how we could improve museums. “Can’t we think about art as not being about winners,” says “Kahlo,” “but about being something we all need in our lives?” Reaching audiences locally and internationally, Guerrilla Girls’ push for equality has inspired generations of artists and activists to join them in pursuing a kinder, more collective vision of what art can be.

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