Baltimore Museum of Art announces GUERRILLA GIRLS poster exhibition

BALTIMORE, MD – The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Front Room: Guerrilla Girls, a selection of 48 works by the New York-based anonymous feminist collective known for using humor to confront sexism and racism in the art world. The works are drawn from their Portfolio Compleat—a compilation of nearly 90 projects undertaken by the group between 1985 and 2012 that was acquired by the BMA in 2015. The exhibition is on view September 25, 2016 through March 12, 2017 in the Front Room Gallery of the museum’s contemporary wing.

Curated by Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Kristen Hileman, Front Room: Guerrilla Girls underscores the New York-based group’s edgy, energetic, and unconventional 30-plus year crusade to call attention to the ways in which museums, private collectors, publications, and the art market have historically marginalized women artists and artists of color. Using a combination of audacious graphics, telling statistics, and provocative humor, their pronouncements are funny, stark, and highly critical of some of their field’s most powerful institutions and individuals, making anonymity a necessary protection for the independent careers members pursue under their own names. Examples of works featured in the exhibition are Do Women Have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? (1989 and 2012 update), There’s a tragedy on Broadway and it isn’t Electra (1999), and Museums cave in to radical feminists! (2008)

Inspired by the exhibition, the BMA will host an Election Night Party on Tuesday, November 8, 7-10 p.m. Gather at the BMA to make political posters and masks; join in-gallery conversations on the intersection of art and politics; and stay up-to-date on the election returns. The evening will also include light refreshments and cash bar from Alma Cocina Latina and a DJ. Tickets are $10 or $5 for BMA Members and students with valid I.D. Purchase tickets at the BMA Box Office in the East Lobby or artbma.org. The event is co-sponsored by Center Stage and the League of Women Voters of Baltimore City.

In keeping with the spirit of the Guerrilla Girls, the exhibition has received generous support from 14 women and one woman-owned business in Baltimore: Virginia K. Adams, Sherry Christhilf, Suzanne F. Cohen, Nancy Dorman, Nupur Parekh Flynn, Sandra Levi Gerstung, Joanne Gold, Nancy Hackerman, Patricia Joseph, Madeline E. Lacovara, Jennifer O’Hara Martin, Amy Frenkil Meadows, Rachel Rabinowitz, Clair Zamoiski Segal, and Alpha Graphics.

Formed in 1985, the Guerrilla Girls are a group of anonymous female artists who produce posters, stickers, books, printed projects, and actions that expose sexism and racism in politics, the art world, and the culture at large. The group’s members protect their individual identities by wearing gorilla masks during public appearances, and by adopting the names of deceased famous female figures such as Edmonia Lewis, Käthe Kollwitz, and Frida Kahlo. The Guerrilla Girls’ work is held in the collections of many prominent institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, the Tate, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Getty Institute. Among these museums are some that have been the subject of the Guerrilla Girls’ critiques. In recent years, the Guerrilla Girls have made appearances at over 90 universities and museums and been covered by The New York Times, Interview, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Artforum, NPR, BBC, and CBC. The group’s publications include The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art and Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls’ Guide to Female Stereotypes.

For general museum information, call 443-573-1700 or visit artbma.org