In recent years, the Guerrilla Girls have been increasingly invited inside the institutions that they’ve spent three decades critiquing. But perhaps never so many at once: This fall, the anonymous, gorilla-masked activists are spreading their feminist message farther and wider than ever, with shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art, London’s Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and Galerie Michèle Didier of Paris, where they will show alongside fellow “militant feminist group” La Barbe. Modern Painters executive editor Rachel Corbett spoke to the “feminist avengers” about what they have in store for their global takeover.The title of your show at Whitechapel, through March 5, poses the question “Is It Still Even Worse in Europe?” Do you have an answer to that?We sent a questionnaire about diversity to 400 European museums and kunsthalles. So far, we’ve received about 50 back; we’ll be displaying the results at the exhibition. We’ll also be naming all the institutions that didn’t respond. We love street projects best, so we’re doing one for Whitechapel, too—a big banner outside the gallery.An exhibition at Tate Modern pairs your work with Andy Warhol’s, comparing your respective interests in the strategies of advertising. What do you think are the parallels, if any?Wow, we haven’t thought about an Andy parallel before, but we certainly do use strategies of advertising, in our case twisting an issue around and presenting it in a new way using facts, humor, and outrageous visuals. Of course, we have never entered the art market the way Warhol did. Anyone with $20 can get a poster or T-shirt and own our work.By the way, we will be operating a Complaints Department at the museum from October 3 to 9, inviting individuals and organizations to come and conspire with the Guerrilla Girls and post complaints about art, culture, politics, the environment, or any other issue they care about. The week will culminate in a special public event documenting and exploring what has been collectively complained about.What was the response to your three-month Twin Cities residency earlier this year? Do Midwesterners react differently to your message than, say, New Yorkers?We have never done so many projects in one city at one time—museum installations, street projects, workshops, gigs... In the case of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, we were able to critically examine the museum’s collection right on its own walls. Best of all, there were also exhibitions around town by hundreds of other artists, students and youth groups. We had lots of support and some criticism. Some students thought we weren’t doing enough for transgender rights. Some didn’t like us wearing masks or being anonymous.Tell me about your contribution to the Museum Ludwig’s 40th-anniversary exhibition in Cologne. I understand you’re critiquing the institution itself?We’re installing a selection of Guerrilla Girls posters from the museum’s collection. Plus, we are doing a new video inside the museum and a banner outside. Both will examine and critique the museum’s diversity, as well as the current epidemic of vanity museums owned and operated by superrich art collectors. Museum Ludwig was an early example of this phenomenon. Tax breaks are only one advantage of starting your own art museum! Another is that you don’t have to put up with pesky curators, with their left-wing notions that museums should cast a wide net and present a true history of art, not just the most expensive stuff.
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