Kathe Kollwitz, a founding member of feminist art collective The Guerilla Girls

Kathe Kollwitz, a founding member of feminist art collective The Guerilla Girls

By Jesse Thorn

If you go to an art museum: contemporary, encyclopedic, local... odds are most of the art displayed was made by white men. Even if you leave out the renaissance painters and the Dutch Masters. It's still not that common to see a solo show by a woman or a person of color these days. This was even more true in the mid-80s. Some of New York's most prominent galleries showed less than 10% of women artists. Others were showing no women at all. In 1984, an art collective known at The Guerilla Girls drew attention to issues of discrimination and representation in galleries and museums all over the world. The group demonstrated in front of museums with placards and picket lines. And they wore gorilla masks while doing it. Jesse talks to a founding member of The Guerilla Girls, who goes by Kathe Kollwitz. She'll reflect on the origins of the group, anonymity in the art world, and what the group means now more than 30 years later.

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