The Guerrilla Girls are a socially active group of women that originated in 1985. Their identities are hidden by gorilla masks. Their group of women came about because I guess they were tired of women not being noticed. In 1982, the Coalition of Womens Art Organizations reported that only 2% of museum exhibitions by living artists were devoted to women. The Guerrilla Girls took it upon themselves to start doing something about this. They started plastering New York City with posters, publicly questioning the inequity with which women are represented, exhibited, and funded in the arts. The Guerrilla Girls have produced posters, stickers, books, printed projects, and actions that expose sexism and racism in politics, the art world, film, and the culture at large. They use humor to convey information, provoke discussion, and show that feminists can be funny. They were the gorilla masks to focus on the issues rather than their personalities. Dubbing themselves the conscience of culture, they declare themselves feminist counterparts to the mostly male tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Batman, and the Lone Ranger. Their work has been passed around the world by kindred spirits. The Guerrilla Girls are an extremely proud group of women and I would be proud to be a part of them. The Guerrilla Girls believe feminism is a fundamental way of looking at the world and they recognize that half of us are female and all of us should be equal. I could not agree more. It’s a fact of history that for centuries women have not had the rights and privileges of men and I believe it’s time for that to end. I wholeheartedly believe in everything that the Guerrilla Girls stand for.
By Paige Horowitz
Yes the wait is over everyone the blog you’ve been waiting for has arrived. In Chapter 13 we learned about a number of great works and even greater men. Nevertheless in my mind the ideals of the Renaissance burned brightest in the man named Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. Over the course of his life Michelangelo produced a number of masterpieces that to this day inspire, awe, and amaze all those seeing them in person for the first time. Truly a prodigy he was born on March 6, 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany which is known today as Caprese Michelangelo. Even during his own life people called him the Renaissance man a title that truly described his genius. Going from adolescent youth to the pride of Florence at the rate of which his art matured is simply astonishing. At the age of 33 Michelangelo undertook what I consider a modern marvel when he began his work on the Sistine Chapel. A creation depicting the cycle of mankind’s life from our creation to the downfall and inevitable salvation of mankind seen through the eyes of a visionary. The completion of this piece of artwork forever cemented Michelangelo’s fame into the chronicles of time. A step away from the beauty the chapel offers is a piece of art with a truly inspiring feeling called the Pieta. This depiction of Mary holding her son’s body after he was crucified shows a level of detail that by the standards of the time was and in my eyes still is extraordinary. In every sense of the word Michelangelo can be called the greatest artist ever to pick up a brush or chisel. I hope this gave you a glimpse of the man known as Michelangelo. 