Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly

by Guerrilla Girls

Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly is the first book to catalog the entire career of the Guerrilla Girls from 1985 to present.

The Guerrilla girls are a collective of political feminist artists who expose discrimination and corruption in art, film, politics, and pop culture all around the world.

This book explores all their provocative street campaigns, unforgettable media appearances, and large-scale exhibitions.
Each copy comes with a punch-out gorilla mask that invites readers to step up and join the movement themselves.
Captions by the Guerrilla Girls themselves contextualize the visuals.
Explores their well-researched, intersectional takedown of the patriarchy
In 1985, a group of masked feminist avengers—known as the Guerrilla Girls—papered downtown Manhattan with posters calling out the Museum of Modern Art for its lack of representation of female artists.

They quickly became a global phenomenon, and the fearless activists have produced hundreds of posters, stickers, and billboards ever since.
More than a monograph, this book is a call to arms.
This career-spanning volume is published to coincide with their 35th anniversary.
Perfect for artists, art lovers, feminists, fans of the Guerrilla Girls, students, and activists
Add it to the shelf with books like Wall and Piece by Banksy, Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope by Artisan, and Graffiti Women: Street Art from Five Continents by Nicholas Ganz

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Feminism, Politics, History, Design, Art History

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2020

About the author

The Guerrilla Girls are feminist masked avengers in the tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Wonder Woman and Batman. We use facts, humor and outrageous visuals to expose sexism, racism and corruption in politics, art, film and pop culture. We undermine the idea of a mainstream narrative in visual culture by revealing the understory, the subtext, the forgotten, the overlooked, the understated and the downright unfair. Our work has been passed around the world by our tireless supporters, who use us as a model for doing their own crazy kind of activism.

In the last few years, the Guerrilla Girls have appeared at over 100 universities and museums around the world. We created a large scale installation for the Venice Biennale, brainstormed with Greenpeace, and participated in Amnesty International's Stop Violence Against Women Campaign in the UK. In 2006, we unveiled our latest anti-film industry billboard in Hollywood just in time for the Oscars, appeared at the Tate Modern, London, and created large scale projects for Istanbul and Mexico City. In 2007 we dissed the Museum of Modern Art at its own Feminist Futures Symposium, examined the museums of Washington DC in a full page in the Washington Post, and exhibited large-scale posters and banners in Athens, Rotterdam, Bilbao, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Shanghai. In 2008-9, we did actions at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA, Los Angeles, Bronx Museum, New York, Ireland and Montreal.

The Guerrilla Girls’ work has appeared in The New York Times, The London Times, The New Yorker, and Bitch; on NPR, the BBC and the CBC; and in many art and feminist texts. We are the authors of stickers, billboards, posters and other projects, and several books including The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art, Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls' Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes and The Guerrilla Girls’ Art Museum Activity Book. Our latest book, The Guerrilla Girls' Hysterical Herstory of Hysteria and How it Was Cured, from Ancient times Until Now, will be published in 2010.

(From http://www.guerrillagirls.com/press/o...)

Reviews

[Katya]

Over 60 individuals become members of the Guerrilla Girls. Some stay for months, some for decades, a few for just a single meeting. They're cis, lesbian and transgender, diverse in age, sexual orientation and class; and from many ethnic backgrounds South Asian, African American, Latinx and European, and so on. Each takes the name of a dead woman artist as a pseudonym.
These days we feel in our gut that something important has changed. No longer can anyone claim that the history of art and culture can be written without including all the diverse voices of that culture. But museums, galleries and art collecting are still dominated and controlled by big money and white men. For the history of art to be more than the story of wealth and power, that must change.
Our work is not finished. We invite you to look through these pages, get mad and keep up the fight. Creative complaining works!

A meio de um périplo de seminários sobre mulheres artistas (entre mil outras coisas), não podia deixar de revisitar o ativismo das Guerrilla Girls. E este livro serve para isso mesmo. Súmula do trabalho efetuado pelo coletivo anónimo desde a sua fundação (1985) até muito recentemente (2020), este The Art of Behaving Badly revela-se um album visual retrospetivo inspirador para curiosos, e valioso para quem trabalhe o tema da luta pela igualdade de género na arte e no mundo da arte contemporâneos.



Poster, 2008

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a fan of the Guerrilla Girls' activism through statistics and relentless, persistent public shaming, and it's bracing to see all of their protest artwork here in one coffee-table style volume. Depressing too, since not much has changed in terms of representation for women artists (and especially women artists of color) in the top museums, galleries, and shows of the art world. It's also an interesting look at the graphic design of protest - the pieces that really seem to work are those that have simple messaging, design, and stark statistics. Maybe I'm just done with election season soundbites and click bait but this makes me a little sad. Even though reality is endlessly nuanced, what humans responded o are the simple black and white arguments.

**Thanks to the artists, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Chantal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book with great pictures about an important subject of female equality. Easily written and explained with lots of pictures. We need more of this in life!

[Honore · Rating 4 out of 5]

So happy to come across this book at my local library! This book focuses on the activism artwork that the Guerrilla Girls have made over the decades and even includes a guerrilla mask in the back to motivate you to get involved. It was especially great to see that the world is finally catching up to what these folks have been saying for years (pay a living wage, include black artists, Jeffrey Epstein is a pedophile, etc.) Great book for folks that know their work or for people that care about gender/race/socio-economic issues.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me ha flipado el trabajo que han hecho y hacen las Guerrilla Girls por las mujeres y las personas de color en el mundo del arte. Un trabajo rebelde, irreverente y muy inteligente, que te deja los pelos de punta. Te hace pensar cosas.

[Ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

I. Love. This. Book. From the first time I saw work from the Guerilla Girls I knew I was hooked. It’s such powerful work with a punch-
I can’t wait to get out there and support- and keep supporting women artists and artists of color.

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nicely-presented, color retrospective of an interesting group that has been acting up for women's rights for decades. A lot of their activism has had to do with women's representation in art galleries, first in NYC, then worldwide, which is a world that I admittedly know little about. I feel that I know a little bit more about the politics of such entities after reading this book, however.

I really like the idea of DIY cheap activism---most of us can't buy a billboard, but anyone can paste up a sign!--as well as the Girls' commitment to remaining anonymous and keeping their message front-and-center. It seems to me that when causes start creating celebrities, that can end up being problematic, especially for the disenfranchised they're trying to help. The back of the book features your very own pull-out gorilla mask so you, too, can be a Guerrilla Girl.

[Mackenzie Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will forever be my favorite version of a coffee table book

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straight from the GG’s website (https://www.guerrillagirls.com/ ):

“The Guerrilla Girls are feminist activist artists. We wear gorilla masks in public and use facts, humor and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias as well as corruption in politics, art, film, and pop culture. Our anonymity keeps the focus on the issues, and away from who we might be: we could be anyone and we are everywhere. We believe in an intersectional feminism that fights discrimination and supports human rights for all people and all genders. We undermine the idea of a mainstream narrative by revealing the understory, the subtext, the overlooked, and the downright unfair. We have done hundreds of projects (posters, actions, books, videos, stickers) all over the world. We also do interventions and exhibitions at museums, blasting them on their own walls for their bad behavior and discriminatory practices, including our 2015 stealth projection on the façade of the Whitney Museum about income inequality and the super rich hijacking art. Our retrospectives in Bilbao and Madrid, and our US traveling exhibition, Guerrilla Girls: Not Ready To Make Nice, have attracted thousands. Recently we produced new street and museum projects at Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery, London; São Paulo Museum of Art; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Military History, Dresden; Art Basel Hong Kong; and many other places. What’s next: More creative complaining!! More interventions!! More resistance!!”

Kudos. Thirty-five years going, and they still can’t use an Oxford comma in their manifesto. I was a fine arts major at Purdue University in 1995, and finished with a BA in Art History in 2001 (long story). Still, the GGs were deep within the grey matter of most feminist art professors, and therefore I was aware of their movement and their mission. A fledgling waking up to the grand hypocrisies of society and history. Things are changing in the art world, in the feminist movement, but they are changing incredibly slow. Some women will always objectify themselves for attention, and most men will always be hormone-driven predators. Of course it sucks, but the GGs fight on. You fight on. We fight on. Corruption is everywhere now. The GOP is soulless and trying to white-knuckle a nepotistic plutocracy, while the corporate Dems are not far behind. They all seek to enhance their stock portfolios over all else as the United States of Hypocrisy frays at the seams. Fighting for wall spaces in art museums is low on the scale of fighting for true equality while half of America can’t afford a $500 emergency bill and the billionaires are trying to escape to Mars. (I realize the GGs is a global movement, and the US is a waning force in the world—I mean who cares about the homeless in America when half of Nigerians are impoverished, right? [https://worldpoverty.io/headline])

What I wish was that the GGs included more essays, diatribes, speeches, and even the above manifesto in this book. Yes, much of their art speaks for itself, hammering the nails home. They made classy bumper stickers in 2015 that said: “Dear Art Collector: Art is sooo expensive! Even for billionaires! We completely understand why you can’t pay all your employees a living wage!” Still . . . some intellectual writing would have enhanced this book exponentially and given young minds heading to colleges more to dwell upon. The Millennials and GenZers are the fresh soldiers in this war. We need them to rise up and fight the system. We need entire generations of people to think outside the f-ing box because the species is careening towards some serious pain. The art market can rot. We are in the post-postmodern movement. Nadja Sayej did a nice interview/book review for The Guardian in OCT 2020, which might have to do (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...

"While many people on museum boards have been forced to resign due to the work of the Guerrilla Girls and other artist-activist protest groups, like Decolonize This Place and the Feminist Art Coalition, the group have been behind milestones in art history, alongside the Riot Grrrl movement, Women Artists in Revolution, the Sister Serpents art group and the New York Feminist Art Institute.

But unlike many others, they wanted to remain anonymous. ‘We wanted to create the idea that we are everywhere, and we are listening,’ said [Käthe] Kollwitz. ‘We could be working at the MoMA or even at Leo Castelli’s gallery. We wanted to create this idea that the art world was being watched, surveilled and scrutinized. Anonymity has protected us, but now I’m not sure anyone cares any more who we are. It has changed.’

What also has changed is the role of the artist-activist, and the amount of resistance art that has sprung up under the Trump administration.

‘Before, there was a lot of disbelief and antagonism to anyone standing up to institutions and calling out discriminations,’ said Kollwitz.

’It’s an amazing time for activism,’ she adds. ‘There’s so many activists in the political art and cultural realm, that we’re all pushing progress forward and protesting all the horrible things that are happening.’”

It’s a noble effort, and I’m a huge supporter of tearing down the established order, fighting “all the horrible things that are happening” in the Anthropocene. Did Occupy Wall Street accomplish anything? Has Black Lives Matter? Has Extinction Rebellion? I hope the GGs are geared up and ready to hammer the Biden administration too, as much as the forces that rally beneath the dark clouds on the horizon creeping after it . . .

. . . because I am, and I won’t be wearing a goddamn mask, even in this age of surveillance capitalism.

[Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd never heard of the Guerrilla Girls, but finished this book recognizing how awesome they are.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

“They could be anyone; they are everywhere. The art world’s masked avengers (and creative complainers) are an anonymous group of artists who use facts, humor and outrageous visuals to expose discrimination in politics, art, film and pop culture. They wear guerrilla masks in public and take the names of dead women artists as pseudonyms. They have produced more than 100 posters, stickers, billboards and books, as well as large-scale installations for the Venice Biennale, Mexico City, London, Bilbao and Istanbul.”

To my delight--and dismay--I discovered that in the capital of my yearlong home Turkey, over 40% of artists shown were women...a much more equitable and progressive percentage than in my nation of origin the U.S. “If museums don’t show art as diverse as the cultures they claim to represent...they’re not showing the history of art, they are just preserving the history of wealth and power.”

“It is an indisputable fact that over the years American museums have presented only a part of the story of our culture. The systematic exclusion of women and artists of color from exhibitions and acquisitions should not continue.” Could feminism be the medicine that cured “hysteria”?

The Guerrilla Girls’ Guide To Behaving Badly was born out of their commencement address to my own hometown Chicago’s School of the Art Institute: Make trouble together. Stop preaching to the converted. Be anony-masked. Jam your culture. Expensive equals exclusive; be affordable. Question the ethics of your favorite places. Complain creatively. Reincarnate the F-Word for Feminism as the F-Word for the Future.

Pick up your copy, put on your punch out mask, (included) and prepare to join the global Guerilla movement!

[Dorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly what we need more of-people unafraid to speak out about the rampant patriarchy that has run much of our world, people not afraid to speak the truth and has the statistics to back it up. This is a glossy and oversized book of the posters and graphics the Guerilla Girls have posted around the downtown NYC area.
Beginning in 1985, posters began appearing all over downtown NYC that exposed the bias and corruption in the world. Art. Film. Politics. Workplace. With bright graphics and thought provoking quotes, these posters named specific art galleries, museums, critics and collectors who contributed to the prejudice against women and artists of color. They included statistics many times, opening many to how deep patriarchy has sunk America.
Wearing Gorilla masks, to protect their safety and identity, I am impressed by their "creative complaining" and necessary campaign. We certainly need more Guerilla women. A gorilla mask in included with this book. Im ready to put mine on!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new compilation documenting the work of the Guerrilla Girls over the last 35 years. They have been calling out the art world to advocate for better representation of women and artists of color in museum collections, gallery shows, exhibition reviews, and financial compensation. They are unsung masters of infographics, combining depressing statistics with wit and tongues firmly in cheek.

Thank you, GG, for all of your work, though I wish it was no longer necessary. Sadly, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Although there has been incremental progress, it is not enough. More can and needs to be done. Alas, this book ends in early 2019, so there is nothing about recent attempts at unionization by art workers, especially in New York and Los Angeles. Many institutions, such as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, were re-examining their collections and how they describe them. And then the pandemic hit, and many museums have permanently laid off workers. The Guerrilla Girls work to increase diversity is even more vital during this year of reckoning,

[Vinayak Hegde · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Guerrilla Girls is political art collective made up of anonymous individuals that makes art to show discrimination against women artists (and against women of colour). The artwork on their posters and placard is biting, satirical and illuminating at the same time. They used art, statistics and other methods to force museums, art collectors, galleries and more of cultural institutions to take action against the status quo.

It was interesting to see that this movement had also made it to the Kochi Bienniale in 2018 (The Bienniale did well in representation with more than 50% of the artists being female). Some of the art was really illuminating such as the protest placard with the caption "Guerrilla Girls demand a return to traditional values on abortion. Even the catholic Church forbid abortion in 1869" from a protest in 1992 (seems like we have come full circle in 2024 US elections). A hard hitting and excellent read.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book entirely in one sitting, it was unputdownable. As an art teacher (K-5) and a former BA student in Drawing and Painting, the Guerrilla Girls movement means so much to me. The movement is one of my favorites in art history and contemporary art. This comprehensive book about the history of the movement, paired with gorgeous photographs of the work of the Guerrilla Girls will be a huge educational aid for me as a teacher. Once this book comes out, I will need tog et a copy to keep in my classroom library for when I teach my students about equality in art.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Our motto: Do one thing. If it works, do another. If it doesn't, do another anyway. Just keep chipping away."

Beautiful collection of campaigns from the Guerrilla Girls. I've always loved this group and their activism, so it was cool to see many of their campaigns together in one collection. My favorite campaigns include "Who Is This Slimy Creature? It's Newt!" (referring to Newt Gingrich), "3 Ways to Write a Museum Wall Label When the Artist is a Sexual Predator," and "Top Ten Signs that You're an Art World Token."

Thanks to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for an ARC!

[Dev · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC copy of this book from NetGalley

actual rating: 3.5

I had seen the images of the posters showing the difference between the number of female artists vs female nude artworks circulating around the around for several years now but never realized that they were from a group who had been doing a lot of projects like that for many years. This book shows those posters as well as a bunch of other similar projects by the Guerrilla Girls. Most of the page space is taken up by pictures with minimal captions / explanations [although a lot of it really speaks for itself] so if you are wanting a more in depth look at the Guerrilla Girls there are probably better books to find, but it's definitely an interesting introductory piece and would make a good coffee table book.

[Dove · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Guerrilla Girls have been around what seems like forever, yet their message is still relevant and current. How disheartening. "Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly" is a great visual book follows the Guerrilla Girls throughout time and around the world and drive the point across.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Cheryl Olseth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was completely unaware museums, art dealers and collectors are as misogynistic in 2020 as they were 40 years ago when the Guerrilla Girls began fighting for women artists. Disturbing. I will pay more attention to which artists are being selected for individual shows at both the Walker and Minneapolis Institute of Art.

[Zoë Westlund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Details so much of the important work the Guerrilla Girls have done to this day very matter-of-factly, and much of their work still gets me worked up now which just shows how effective it is. I’m so glad organizations like this exist, and I hope more and more will be made until this world is finally a better place.

[Frederique Veldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heerlijk boek: een duidelijk feministisch strijdpunt, namelijk het grote gebrek aan vrouwelijke kunstenaars en kunstenaars van kleur in Kunstmusea, maar dan gebracht met veel humor. 'Do women have to be naked to hang in the Met?'
Door consequent te turven hoeveel procent van de kunstenaars vrouw of van kleur zijn, leggen ze ook patronen over de tijd bloot.

[Amanda Karsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am always facilitating with the Guerrilla Girls, the have a great take on how to bring light to women and women of colour not getting the recognition they deserve.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hell yes!! Just what we all need to get fired up!! A great text with amazing visuals to share with all ages!

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful retrospective from an inspiring group!

[Theremin Poisoning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Making good trouble for decades.

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great picture book documenting the work of the Guerilla Girls as they combat discrimination in this country, especially in the art world.

[roxy punk · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must for every being on the Universe!!!

[Gabrielle Wonnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal! It will inspire feminists (even those who won't use the word) in any field.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my goodness, I love these ladies and their audacity to confront the biases of the art world (and world at large). This is a great overview of all of their work!

[Pandaduh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked learning through this book.