The Georgia Museum of Art at UGA is presenting the exhibition Not Ready to Make Nice: Guerrilla Girls in the Artworld and Beyond through March 1.
Not Ready to Make Nice features provocative work by the anonymous Guerrilla Girls artists, a feminist collective famous for combining humor, hard facts and art on street posters, billboards and stickers. Their creations draw attention to the underrepresentation of women artists and artists of color in museums around the world. The exhibition features major works from rarely shown international projects tracking the group’s artistic and activist influence around the globe.
The exhibition is organized by in-house curators Lynn Boland, the Pierre Daura Curator of European Art, and Sarah Kate Gillespie, curator of American art, in partnership with Neysa Page-Lieberman, curator of Not Ready to Make Nice: Guerrilla Girls in the Artworld and Beyond director and curator of the exhibitions, performance and student spaces department at Columbia College Chicago.
“As the title of the show demonstrates, they tackle issues beyond inequality in the art world and, through their posters, billboards and performances, seek to raise our awareness on a range of social issues such as the biases of Hollywood or the fight for marriage equality,” Gillespie said.
The exhibition also includes documentary material depicting famous actions, behind-the-scenes photos, secret anecdotes from the movement and iconic work from the 1980s and 1990s illustrating the evolution of the group’s feminist-activist philosophy and unique approach to arts activism. The Guerrilla Girls maintain their anonymity by adopting the names of dead female artists and wearing gorilla masks.
“There are several interactive elements to the exhibition where visitors will be encouraged to leave comments and messages relating to the content of the show,” Gillespie said. “This is a great way to engage visitors and to start a real dialogue about some of the issues the Guerrilla Girls raise.”
Associated events include a gallery talk with Gillespie on Feb. 13 from 12:20-1:10 p.m. and a panel discussion sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts on Feb. 19 at 5:30 p.m. The discussion will include Page-Lieberman, Frida Kahlo, founding and current member of the Guerrilla Girls, and Romaine Brooks, a former Guerrilla Girl. A reception sponsored by the Institute for Women’s Studies will follow the discussion.
