Who Needs Another Guerrilla Girls?

It’s telling for an anonymous activism collective to take over a space that they have traditionally criticised. It’s even more telling for an arts foundation to invite this collective to create, as its curator called, an atmosphere of “insurrection”. During the opening week of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), I was drawn towards this delightful homecoming of sorts when two founding members of US-based Guerrilla Girls (GG)—known worldwide for their feminist and radical activism against sexism and racism in the arts—landed in Kochi for India’s first woman-led KMB. Those unaware of their brazen advocacy were confronted with posters across Fort Kochi, the main venue, where messages of ‘Don’t stereotype me’ and ‘The world needs a new weapon: An estrogen bomb’ were juxtaposed with images of women wearing gorilla masks. These teasers did create a tantalising impact, and the intrigue only deepened when an anonymous testimony of sexual harassment by artist Subodh Gupta broke. Surely, the collective, who have done their own version of calling out sexual predators in the art circuit of the US, would have a thing or two to say this time?

With much sadistic glee in my heart, I walked into the press room for a last-minute interaction with the GG. The best part about interviewing the GG is that there is no problem in identifying them. The GG, since the beginning, have used anonymity as their most fierce weapon, to keep the focus on real issues, and away from their personal selves. They all wear gorilla masks and assume the names of dead artists. And so here I was, sitting in the company of GG’s founding members, Frida Kahlo and Käthe Kollwitz.

The GG activism is deeply rooted in the idea of representation of women, and it’s interesting to see how their work has brought them all the way to India—to Kochi, no less, where statewide agitations against the historic Sabarimala verdict has shed an unnerving light on anti-women sentiments in the most “progressive” state in the country. For GG, though, their work has a lot to do with the “consciousness of culture”, which, though has changed since the ’80s when they founded the collective, is uniform across the world. “It would be very hard to find anyone who doesn't believe that diversity is necessary in culture and in the telling of our history,” says Kollwitz, “However, the system that filters art and turns it into money or commodity hasn’t changed much at all. So there's this big conflict there between, let’s say, the art lovers and the consumers. And we would just like to see art become more democratic—to see it have less to do with money. Why should we allow billionaire art collectors and capitalists to tell us what our culture is?”

Anonymity is perhaps the most apt and powerful analogy in the Indian art world right now, especially when anonymous accounts brought out by the controversial Instagram account, Scene and Herd, has been “troubling” for some critics. “We believe that no person who's been sexually harassed or is, should feel compelled to come out with their names unless they want to. We've been anonymous and people have respected our anonymity,” Kahlo tells me, “The situation, in particular, in art academies, in the US especially, most of the students are female, most of the professors are men. There has been an opportunity for abuse of power and sexual aggression. And I'm sure it's the same situation here. It becomes very hard for the survivors to come out. But we have to respect their anonymity and allow them to tell their stories the way they want. And we think that no one should be excused from it, even the people who run the biennales.”

The GG, in fact, started their campaigns for the #MeToo movement long before the media started touching upon it last year. “We have been referencing sexual violence for a long time, starting in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when we were looking at the situation of

Carl Andre and OJ Simpson

: two prominent American men who were accused of murdering their wives. It's not a new issue for us; we've been thinking about it and working with it,” says Kollwitz. Did #MeToo propel their activism in a new direction though, I ask them. “Oh sure. We're always trying to do more issues, but we're not systematic,” says Kahlo, “We don’t say, ‘This is our five-year plan’. Our

latest poster

, which is out in the US, has been getting a lot of attention and aggression from institutions refusing to put it up. It's called ‘3 Ways To Write a Museum Wall Label When The Artist Is A Sexual Predator'.

On December 14, the two took to the stage with their “presentation”—more of an awkward, even ill-prepared run-through of their work over the years—and startled the audience with many a powerful statement: “Art is the fourth largest black market after drugs, guns and diamonds” and “What do you call #MeToo in the art world?: #NotSurprised”. However, towards the end, when they were confronted by a few petitioners who demanded what is to become of recent allegations against KMB co-founder Riyaz Komu and, now, Gupta, the GG appeared visibly confused. They were not aware of the specifics, they admitted, and asked the protestors to send them details. And that was that.

It’s understandable for the GG’s much-hyped presence to fall flat at such an electric moment (palpable in the standing ovation that the protestors, and not GG, received at the end), because it’s unfair to assume that the burden of change within the Indian art world must lie on them. It, however, is up to us—the organisers, the artists as well as the visitors (even the jaded ones, like this writer).

The collective, however, gave us a few things to think about:

First, that one’s activism must be intersectional. “No one is free until everyone is free,” says Kahlo. “It's even more important now.”

Secondly, keep your activism as diverse as possible. The GG, since the beginning, has had diversity in terms of race, sexuality and age in their 50-odd collective. “We really try very hard to be as diverse ourselves as possible because we all have to learn from each other and the situation involves us all all the time. It's not easy, but nothing good is easy,” says Kollwitz.

Lastly, and perhaps the most important one: We don’t need GG to make a difference. “Find some friends, develop your own, crazy identity and go after the issues you care about. The world needs more than one group of feminist masked avengers,” concludes Kahlo.

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