As a part of the new take home
essay, I wanted to evaluate the role art plays in changing the views of society. One of my examples, The Guerrilla Girls, used
public ads to exploit aspects of art. The
Guerilla Girls first appeared in New York City in the 80s. They kicked off their disobedient movement
through protests. They protested outside
of the MoMA, yet had little success. Now
they use shocking statistics to provoke readers into seeing the unfair
representation of women in art culture.
One of
their many ads they’ve created compared 1985 to 2015. The image features a list of art museums and
counted the number of exhibitions women have had in them. Both dates feature the Museums: Guggenheim,
Metropolitan, Modern, and Whitney. The
Guggenheim, Metropolitan, and Whitney count zero exhibitions by women in
1985. Modern counts one. 30 years later the Guerrilla Girls counted
again, in 2015. Each museum only
increased exhibitions by one, Guggenheim, Metropolitan, and Whitney went to a
grand total of one, and the Modern a mind blowing two. The Guerrilla Girls refused to stay quiet
about the inequality in the art world, including these blunt statistics allows
their viewers to see how incredibly unjust women are treated in society. Never being featured in museums, never
getting recognition and praise for their work, the Guerrilla Girls refused to
let this slide by. Although they were
able to expose various art museums, more importantly they are forcing their
viewers to reflect. Reflect on how
nothing has changed since the 80s, women are still not being treated equally,
despite it being 30 years later.
Disobedient actions like the ones the Guerrilla Girls used inspires public
to engage in action. Encouraging society
to fight back against inequality is an important role disobedience plays. If there were no groups like the Guerrilla
Groups pushing society to see harsh truths, change would not happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment