34 years Ago, brought with it a simple question of black and yellow, the ball rolling: “do women have To be naked to get into the Metropolitan Museum?” The poster is legendary, as are his authors, the anonymous operating artists group guerrilla Girls. For decades, the Activist will fight in gorilla masks and taking the names of deceased colleagues against the inequality between the sexes in the art world. In advance of your visit in Switzerland, we spoke with founding member Frida Kahlo.
What is the command leads the guerrilla Girls in Switzerland?
Our connection to Switzerland is the Swiss artist Miriam Cahn. It has suggested that Swiss museums are buying our plants – the Basel and Bern museums have done. The greater our joy, to follow also the invitation of the festival Les Créatives to a gig in Basel and Geneva.
It is not so the Search of the portal “Swiss Info”, which has led to a guerrilla action in Germany? This has revealed that from 2008 to 2018 exhibitions only 15 percent of all single in the major Swiss museums and the artists were dedicated to.
Actually? No, we don’t know the study! Only the balance of the sexes in the museums is not important, but also a comprehensive diversity. Determined Swiss museums still have more blind spots.
there Is a Poster by the Guerilla Girls, says: “It’s even worse in Europe, In Europe it is even worse”?
Yes, true, but it is an old factory in 1986. This saying was aimed at the time to something very Specific, it was noticed in Europe: the romantic myth of the artist as a genius. This genius was always male. We have made 2016 a survey among the European museums in order to check the Situation.
poster campaign against the exhibition policies of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, 2012. Photo: guerrilla Girls
you run your statistical study of the prevailing conditions, for over thirty years – you will see an improvement or a deterioration? This can not be answered clearly. The diversity was, in some European museums is greater, in others there were setbacks. In Spain there are now about a law that says that state spending on Culture must be relatively divided between the sexes. And the Tate Modern in London, now has a Director – finally. Modern art museums are also often dependent on the market and must dance, especially in the U.S., according to the pipe of the collector. This will protect your investment in works of white male artists, by displacing the art of the other.
the Moma in New York, which triggered her first indignation, wasn’t it?
Yes, in 1984, took place in an international survey exhibition, with 165 artists, and there were not even 13 women, including. We protested against it and angered many. At the time, Museum visitors were convinced that curators are not impartial experts, their judgment was regarded as beyond any doubt. If there was no art by women or people of other skin color in the museums, then the art just had to be worse.
How could such serious abuses remain virtually invisible?
they were not really invisible. Women and marginalised groups of artists themselves knew very well that you have been denied opportunities. But it was impossible for them to make this Knowledge public. No one listened to them simply.
Until they came up with their gorilla masks – why Gorillas?
We decided early on to stay as Activists anonymous, given the Trouble we caused. The art world is small, and they works like a gentleman’s club. We were artists and wanted to come to our Fort as such is not at risk. Only later we realized that anonymity was a good strategy to put the Problem into the centre of the discussion – and not as the bearer of inside bad news.
The legend has it that you donned gorilla masks, because of guerrilla and Gorilla sounds so similar, right?
in fact, one of us was bad in spelling, and always wrote guerrilla than Gorilla. This has inspired us to the specific Camouflage. But our self-understanding has always been that we were freedom fighters, guerrillas,. The additional “Girls” was ironic, because women are often trivialized as a “girl”. The gorilla heads were not custom-made. We bought, what you got on the market.
Well, it would be naive to expect that millennia of Patriarchy can be eradicated by a single feminist century.
The masks of today are not the same as at the beginning?
no, of course not, you need to join all of our performances and wear out. We buy new online. But for some reason, today, there are less playful gorilla masks than in the past.
you wear all the names of the deceased artists. Why have you chosen just Frida Kahlo as their patron?
We gave us names of forgotten artists, the fit to our concerns. When we started our activity in 1985, was Frida Kahlo in the USA, virtually unknown, although she was in Mexico, already a legend. At the time, her first biography came out, they impressed me.
Wealth and Power, the poster from the year 2016. Photo: guerrilla Girls
What in Particular?
Kahlo’s independence, and that she said what she thought, regardless of the prevailing opinion. And how you crafted your life as a woman and as an artist. I didn’t have to think long. She was my Idol.
Frida Kahlo was, decades ago, the first “re-discovered” artists, but only recently it started with the history correction really. Almost every week there is an exhibition of forgotten artists goes on somewhere inside, and museums such as the Moma design your presentations of the Collection to give women greater visibility. Why only now?
Now, it would be naive to expect that millennia of Patriarchy can be eradicated by a single feminist century. These correction movements are like waves that change our understanding of the history of art. Each wave is more comprehensive than the previous one.
the ending until shortly after the turn of the Millennium in Europe the feeling which was equality already full. How was that possible?
And again, you have to ask: Who had the feeling? The Policy? The Economy? These are not the drivers of progress – the culture it is. Who pushes the glass ceiling of the head, the white, and that it is there. Like women always knew, that the society were socially sanctioned Abuses of male Power holders a form of Violence. The Outcry of the #MeToo or #Time’sUp came not from the Nothing.
The social stigma of the Assault was long overdue. But it is good for the Morale of the aesthetic judgment of art?
What do you mean?
I think in a case such as the controversy surrounding the image of the artist Dana Schutz. It was called to his destruction, because the white artist had depicted the tragedy of a dark-skinned child.
of course, I am absolutely against the destruction of works of art. On the other hand, for us, White is not the time to listen to the voices of all who could not yet speak? I think it is.
Guerilla Girls will fight with a sense of Humor, biting irony, direct speech. They were even accused of never to discriminate against others?
Oh, of course!
when, for example?
for example, when we gave our newspaper the “Hot Flashes” in the 1990s, and a higher price of the white men than from women and persons of color demanded – as it was called discrimination, immediately “!”. It was a welcome opportunity to discuss the Status quo: that women earn less and for so much more have to pay for the hairdresser, for clothes, for Make-up et cetera. This discrimination was a provocation.
On Wednesday, they occur in the Kunstmuseum Basel. You know that exhibitions there between 2008 and 2018, only nine percent of the artists?
no, but thanks for the note. This deserves a spirited guerrilla use.
Created: 12.11.2019, 14:10 PM
