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How to use the F-word in 2016: The Guerrilla Girls Twin Cities Takeover | ART21 Magazine
JAN / FEB 2016 ISSUE "Movement"
How to use the F-word in 2016: The
Guerrilla Girls Twin Cities Takeover
by Megan Johnston | Jan 28, 2016
Guerrilla Girls, 2015.
itting outside the Department Head’s office at Minneapolis College of Art & Design I was nervous, clearly
S
unaccustomed to sounds and vibes of academia. I felt like an imposter. For more than two decades I had
worked in the field as a curator, writer, and art administrator. Somehow by the time I left the building I had
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How to use the F-word in 2016: The Guerrilla Girls Twin Cities Takeover | ART21 Magazine
agreed to teach a course in Gender, Art & Society and help plan a Guerrilla Girls project for MCAD.
In a way it was a bit familiar. From 2008 to 2009, I had organized an all-Ireland Guerrilla Girls project. The newly
commissioned work—and the statistics that backed up the research—confirmed what we knew about sexism in Ireland while
also providing a space for discussion about the state of women in the arts. We also observed the role of artistic collectives, the
power of art activism, how process was as important as the end result (the art object), and the role that feminist art
methodologies played (and plays) in what we understand as contemporary practice today. These ideas—the power of socially
engaged art, the history and legacy of feminist tactics and methods of making art, and the collective consciousness found in art
activism—all were at the core of every Guerrilla Girls project I’d worked on: the Girls in Ireland, teaching at MCAD, and what
would become theGuerrilla Girls Takeover, happening across Minnesota from now until March. The process for organizing the
Takeover was intentionally non-hierarchical and inclusive—aiming to bring three big museums together while also allowing for
grassroots participation. The methodology of prioritizing process eventually became a core principle for the Guerrilla Girls
project in the Twin Cities. Lead by an adventurous steering committee representing a wide range of cultural institutions and
independent curatorial voices, our aim is to open up political and dialogical space to answer questions like:
What does or will the Fourth Wave of Feminism look like?
How can collective action and art activism impact the political consciousness today, especially with young people?
How can we utilize the history, integrity and energy of the Guerrilla Girls to attempt to answer these questions?
Guerrilla Girls. I’m Not A Feminist, 2010. © Guerrilla Girls.
I first heard of the Guerrilla Girls while studying art history at the University of Minnesota in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The group served as a beacon of intelligent, socially engaged political art that spoke to a broad layer of young women (and
men) dedicating their lives to art. Importantly, the activist art movement included artists and others who were engaging in an art
practice that “had something to say.” Some of the exhibitions in Minneapolis that I worked on as a tour guide and intern during
this time included artists Carrie Mae Weams, Lorna Simpson, political posters from the former USSR, Helio Oiticica, and Jacob
Lawrence. Artists such as Jenny Holzer and Magdalena Abakanowicz were commissioned to create sculptures for the
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and I researched them for the first audio guide at Walker Art Center. Frank Gehry built his first
museum, the Weisman Art Museum, encouraging us all to see and think differently about art and architecture. Griselda Pollock
was a visiting scholar at UofM, and many of us studied with her, where she not only expanded our knowledge of feminist art
criticism, but also encouraged activism in our academic pursuits. There were also several gigs by the punk group the Riot Grrls
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at First Avenue, where music, art and politics collided every weekend. For those of us who were studying art and art history and
volunteering and working in local museums and galleries, the Guerrilla Girls and artists like those mentioned above encouraged
activism in the spaces where we believed meaning, value and understanding was being constructed—in art practice, universities
and museums. We saw art as a way of creating meaningful dialogue, and it had the capacity to reflect and influence thinking in
society. We believed that activism in art was essential. This time was decisive (not seminal…the Girls discourage that word…)
in my curatorial practice.
Twenty-five years later we now are at a point when the ideas embodied in feminism are at once institutionalized and co-opted
by the art establishment, and yet are more important than ever. For more than three decades the Guerrilla Girls have served as
agents of provocation, using humor to push boundaries and pose demonstrative facts and figures that challenge the patriarchal,
hetero-centric [art] world. Yet how does the Guerrilla Girls’ process-led practice of a collective, statistic-driven and advertisingorientated aesthetic work within a post-Feminist context? Well, it’s complicated; and in a way the artwork doesn’t work because
it’s not about the art—it’s about the dialogical process; it’s about awareness and change. And the collaborative process is hard,
uncontrollable, fraught with angst, and—for those of us that embrace it—highly impactful. We know that the notion of a nonbinary spectrum of complicated definitions of gender is part of the context of living and creating in 2016. My MCAD students
taught me that. I wonder, though, if we/they understand how we got here? Does the Millennial generation, one particularly
concerned with transgender issues that question the language and motivations of the Guerrilla Girls, understand that they sit on
the socio-political space that activists like the Girls and others fought for? We are not a post-racial or post-feminist world. Yes,
important changes have been made and gains have been won, but we are far from equality. Yet shockingly, we seem to be even
farther from the intelligent, dialogical critiques necessary to move beyond a 60-letter retort or an internet troll comment. A
click-and-go-pseudo-dialogue without consequences, accountability or integrity has now seemed to replace the “normal” way of
dialoguing about art. But I expect more; I expect intelligent debate with progressive arguments that push the boundaries of
understanding and ideas.
Guerrilla Girls. Toast to Irish Art, Lads (Pssst: Not So Fast, Lasses), 2010. © Guerrilla Girls.
When I first heard about the critiques of the Guerrilla Girls in Minneapolis in 2015, I was excited; ecstatic in fact. This was just
what we wanted—dialogical space to continue to push the boundaries of the discussion. The project was never to make the
Guerrilla Girls a spectacle or artist-genius (it’s hard to even write that phrase it’s so ridiculous). The project, again, was to talk
about what kind of feminism was needed today. In Ireland we often heard: “I’m not a feminist, but if I was this is what I would
complain about.”
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The answer? We are still waiting for more dialogue; we will get that in the next few months. It has begun and some the answers
will come. Yes, it’s that simple but it is also not that easy. What we do have are hundreds, if not thousands, of people and more
than thirty groups, organizations, and institutions who have emphatically and energetically joined in the Guerrilla Girls Twin
Cities Takeover. We will examine these questions and debate and argue – and then reflect. Do you need more proof that the
feminism prophesied by the Girls is still needed? Still wanted? Ask us at the end of March… we might know more then.
Formed in 1985, the Guerrilla Girls were influenced by the
political movements of the 1960s and 1970s in the US, and
were a part of the opposition to the backlash against the
Feminist movement and, later, central to the dialogue
responding to issues in post-Feminism and art. The
Guerrilla Girls explore subjects like politics, film, and
popular culture, feminism and fashion, and the attempt to
achieve sexual and racial equality, calling themselves the
‘Conscience of the art world.’ They wear gorilla masks in
public to conceal their identities, and place the focus on
issues rather than personalities, working collectively and
Collaborative wall open to visitor additions at the Guerrilla Girls’ Project
Ireland, 2009. Photo by Dermot Burns.
anonymously to produce posters, films, billboards, public
actions, books and other projects.
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CONTRIBUTOR
MEGAN JOHNSTON
Johnston is a museum director, curator, writer and educator who's worked in museums
in Minneapolis, New York, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Georgia, and North Dakota. She
has curated more than 300 artists’ projects and considers herself an arts activist. Her
work has been published in several books, journals and periodicals including
OnCurating, CIRCA, and Open Engagement. She recently finished her PhD in
curating and museology at the University of Ulster in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK,
focusing on Slow Curating. She is currently the Executive Director at Rochester Art
Center in Rochester, Minnesota.
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minnesota
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feminist art
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Guerrilla Girls Twin Cities Takeover
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