{"data":{"id":"5461","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":5461,"topgoose_id":2128,"tms_id":5461,"display_name":"Guerrilla Girls","sort_name":"Guerrilla Girls","display_date":"1985–","begin_date":"1985","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eThe Guerrilla Girls collective of female\nartists came together in the 1980s to\ncondemn the bias that women and people\nof color faced in the art world. At the\ntime, American museums mounted few\nexhibitions of female artists and rarely\nacquired women’s art for their collections.\nWearing gorilla masks—their trademark—\nthe Guerrilla Girls demonstrated in front\nof New York museums. They also created\nposters using statistical research to\nreveal pervasive sexism and racism in the\narts and culture. Their famous poster\nasking, “Do women have to be naked to\nget into the Met Museum?” pointed\nout that while only 5 percent of works in\nthe permanent collection of the Metropolitan\nMuseum of Art were by women artists,\n85 percent of the nudes in the collection\nwere female.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Clocktower Gallery, an alternative\nart space in lower Manhattan, invited the\nGuerrilla Girls to mount a response to\nthe 1987 Whitney Biennial. The gallery had\nnoticed that only 24 percent of the works\nfeatured were by women artists. In \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/46884\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eGuerrilla\nGirls Review the Whitney\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e—a poster publicizing\nthe Clocktower show—the female figure\nin a gorilla mask points a finger at the phallic\nsymbol of a banana in her other hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Guerrilla Girls have continued their\nwork to the present day, employing similar\ntactics even as their anonymous membership\nhas changed. They have been instrumental\nin encouraging art museums to rethink\nestablished narratives about modern art, and\nto focus more rigorously on collecting and\nexhibiting work that more accurately reflects\nthe diversity of artists today.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":null,"wikidata_id":null,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:01:15.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-01-28T18:06:37.237-05:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/5461/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/5461/exhibitions"}}}}