Guerrilla Girls and Mary Jane Jacob

I had never really heard of the Guerrilla Girls before, because I’ve never been that exposed to the art world.  I have been learning so much in this class about the actual world of art.  In high school they just teach you how to create different kinds of art; they don’t expose you to what the art world actually entails.  So when I opened up “Conversations before the End of Time” to the readings this week and saw that we were reading about a group of girl artists who “periodically streak through the night, disguised in gorilla masks and fishnet stockings, putting up waggish posters that zap the white male establishment for its sexism and racism” (203), I decided I should be ready to accept some radical ideas.  But, to my surprise, their ideas weren’t radical at all.  To me, they seemed like they should be a given.  Maybe the ways that the Guerrilla Girls execute their ideas are a little radical, but their message should already be accepted!  I thought a certain project of theirs was interesting where they make “report cards, which evaluate specific members of the art world on their performance in relation to the underrepresentation of women” (203).  I thought that this was an innovative way to look at the institution because they normally rate the artists instead of the artists rating them.  The girls attend panel discussions and news appearances and lectures at universities to send out “public service messages.” This made me think of a musical artist who created an album with “public service announcements.”  It seems like a silly connection, but my connection was with the rapper Jay-Z and his “Black Album.”  The way they described the Whitney Biennial was amazing!  When they talked about the boom boxes and the music and the funky art!  I wanted to go there immediately.  It sounded like so much fun!  I like the tags that Daniel J. Martinez from Los Angeles made.  The admission buttons that consisted of words that when put together said “I can’t imagine ever wanting to be white.”  I thought that was funny, but I’m not quite sure if I was supposed to think it was funny.  I also liked the comment about how the few people on top can change their opinions and when those opinions change, so does the whole view of the art world.  I didn’t like the comment about how to improve the New York Times, however.  Put a hiring freeze on young white men from the Ivy League?  Okay, so I guess they’re fighting fire with fire…  But those men could have innovative ideas; innovative ideas like they do.  It was funny when Gablik asked them to talk about the serious message of their work and they responded with saying that, because of the small percentage of women in the art world, they felt like they “were in deep shit” (209).  I found them to be very humorous, it seemed like it is positive anger that they are spreading.  This transcends in their idea of the “gorilla.”  The image is oxymoronic because they are women wearing these scary masks trying to fight like “guerrillas” for something that they deeply believe in.  What they’re fighting for makes me angry and it also confuses me.  It angers me because what they’re fighting for shouldn’t be happening.  There shouldn’t be any discrimination.  Ever.  Period.  It makes me so angry!  On a lighter note, I love how they are banding together to fight for the individual women careers.  They’re fighting together to achieve freedom individually.  It is so amazing!  The fact that there aren’t that many women out there in the galleries confuses me because the girls made a good point.  And that is this; there are so many women who go to school to study art, but where do they go?  How do they get so lost?  How can men dominate the art world when there are so many creative women out there?! 

  

Mary Jane Jacob addresses this idea in her conversation with Suzi Gablik.  Her ideas of the new institutions were so amazing!  I wanted to visit those kinds of art shows immediately after reading them!  She wants the audience to become a more of conversation.  She wants to include the audience and not discourage them from interacting with the work of the artist.  She talked about the social and cultural messages that she deals with and said that the “widespread practice of such art has also given is mediocre examples as well as great ones, and it runs the risk of becoming just another style of the moment, soon to be passed over as we look again for something new” (299).  But if the art deals with cultural and social issues then it will always be new because those issues will always be evolving, just like the rest of the world.  I also had no idea that there was a word for purposefully including someone of minority just to make you look good.  I mean tokenism?  Come on…!  But in a way, don’t all institutions do that?  I guess it makes sense because they have to.  Everyone should be included, no matter whom they are.  But if we truly were color blind or shade blind or whatever, then what does it matter whom is included?  It shouldn’t matter what you look like, no one should get horrible treatment or special treatment.  And furthermore, there will always be problems with something because not everyone can be pleased.  We are all different, and it should stay that way because diversity is a good thing.  Otherwise this world would be boring and boring is just so…  Boring.  Some questions: “Do we need to always first build up, and then tear down, the institution to get somewhere else” (303)?  And “can we only arrive at that after we’ve had institutions” (303)?  I think that the idea of the institution is a good idea because the works of artists need to be shown.  But I think that Jacob has the right idea by changing the experience.  It’s hard because artists need the hype and the money that comes with the institution.  But can’t they still receive the money in a different context?  Well that depends on where they show it and who shows up to see it.  It needs to be a place that is accessible; a space that many different kinds of people can get to.  But will more art be sold if it’s in a different context, a better context?  I think so.  I think if the art (and the audience) is magnified by the context, then the change should be made.  Sometimes certain places shouldn’t contain certain types of art because the building won’t do the art justice.  But no matter what inspired the work, the place where it becomes showcased should magnify the work for everyone who interacts with it.  I agree with her final definition of art.  My definition of art is very broad as well.  “I think generically, that art can be just an interaction, or it can be something physical like an object” (311).  “From an avant-garde way of thinking, art can certainly exist in many ways that are temporal, rather than spatial or physical.  However, that decision isn’t mine; that decision is the artists” (311).  But like she says, that decision is always up to the interpretation of the individual and I think that that is exactly what art should be about.  It should be your choice to define it however you please.