Art Against Art: Looking at Selected Posters of Guerilla Girls in their Resistance Against Sexual Politics (original) (raw)

Guerrilla Girls: Invisible Sex in the Field of Art

Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Studia de Arte et Educatione, 2018

The article focuses on an artist and activist collective Guerrilla Girls, created in 1985 in or- der to fight discrimination in the art field. It presents the group’s strategies, using selected actions as examples. The article is also a critical analysis of the collective’s achievements in the context of feminist theories, especially one concerning the relations between feminism and issues of race and ethnicity. The author is also interested in the connections between members of the group and the art system, as well as questions on sexism in the contempo- rary art field, after 30 years of Guerrilla Girls’ existence.

Cozinhando Imagens. Tejiendo Feminismos. Latin American Feminist Film and Visual Art Collectives

2021

During the last years, there has been a revitalization of feminist movements internationally. In Latin America, the performance of ‘A Rapist in Your Path’ by the collective LasTesis on 25 November 2019 put Chilean feminism in the global spotlight. This revitalization is also pushing for political and legal reforms, such as the approval of a bill legalising abortion in Argentina on 30 December 2020. The alliances between feminists, artists, and filmmakers in Latin America are not new. Fuelled by the 1970s women’s movement, several feminist film collectives emerged during this decade and instrumentalized cinema to raise awareness about women’s issues and intervene in political contexts. Cine Mujer in Mexico (1975-1986), Cine Mujer in Colombia (1978-1999) and Grupo Feminista Miércoles in Venezuela (1978-1988) produced films that exposed issues related to reproductive rights, sexual violence, and the status of domestic work, amongst others. Today, most of their films remain shockingly relevant yet largely unknown. Thus, this conference has two main objectives. On the one hand, it attempts to recover the history of Latin American feminist cinema. On the other hand, it looks at contemporary feminist visual art collectives. Through exploring past and present feminist artistic practices and establishing a dialogue between them, this conference attempts to provide a space of reflexion on the relations between art and activism within feminist and women’s movements. What can current feminist activists, filmmakers, and artists learn from past struggles and their visual representations? How can artistic practices on women’s issues most effectively raise awareness, initiate public debates, and change situations of injustice? How can collective and collaborative artistic practices transform the world around us?

Women on the Walls Women as Subjects in Street Art around the World

Schiffer Publishing, 2022

The first book to focus exclusively on women as subjects in street art, this study, part travelogue and part dialogue, examines these depictions of women artistically, politically, and culturally across continents. Interviews with artists peel back the layers between artist and image, revealing stories about their work, its context, and its environment. From artists in L.A. pushing back on Hollywood's shiny perfection; to painters in Costa Rica examining the cultural links of women, myth, and nature; to women in South Africa decrying domestic violence, what links these works are their temporality and public ownership. Why do wall artists choose women as their frequent and favorite subjects? What does it say about our conceptions of gender and rebellion, protest, pride, place, and community? And how does the growing commercialization of street art affect their portrayal? Color photos and guided historical context provoke these questions and inspire further ones.The first book to focus exclusively on women as subjects in street art, this study, part travelogue and part dialogue, examines these depictions of women artistically, politically, and culturally across continents. Interviews with artists peel back the layers between artist and image, revealing stories about their work, its context, and its environment. From artists in L.A. pushing back on Hollywood's shiny perfection; to painters in Costa Rica examining the cultural links of women, myth, and nature; to women in South Africa decrying domestic violence, what links these works are their temporality and public ownership. Why do wall artists choose women as their frequent and favourite subjects? What does it say about our conceptions of gender and rebellion, protest, pride, place, and community? And how does the growing commercialisation of street art affect their portrayal? Colour photos and guided historical context provoke these questions and inspire further ones. https://schifferbooks.com/products/women-on-the-walls

Women on Walls: The Female Subject in Modern Graffiti Art

eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics, 2018

Modern day wall art featuring women as subjects is usually painted by male artists, although women graffiti artists are challenging that male dominance and there are ample examples of their work on social media. The choice of women as subjects dates back to ancient Rome and Greece where idealized female images provided a template for desire, sexuality and goddess status. In modern times, wall artists present women as iconic subjects of power, renewal, and social commentary. Feminine graffiti appears to be idiosyncratic in its subject matter—the product of history, geography, culture and political discourse based on feminine power and influence. Although it is impossible to generalize stylistically about street artists, who are sui generis by their very nature–and wall art defies easy labelling–there are some patterns that are apparent when wandering city streets and encountering women subjects on walls. This photo-essay explores women who feature in wall art in open air galleries in...