All-Stars from left to right
Seated in front: John Chamberlain,
Chuck Close, Arnold Glimcher, Saul Steinberg, second row: Donald Judd,
Robert Mangold, Jim Dine third row: George Condo, Robert Ryman, Joel Shapiro,
Lucas Samaras
This poster was our response to a New York Times Magazine cover of October
3, 1993, which featured Arne Glimscher of Pace Gallery, art dealer to the
movie monguls, with his "art world all-stars" all middle-aged
white males.
The Guerrilla Girls are a small, direct-action group of anonymous art-world Conceptual artists, feminists, who don gorilla masks for demonstrations; founded in New York in 1985 with the explicit mission of increasing the visibility of women and minorities in the art world. Although membership is said to include well-known artists and gallery proprietors, identities are also hidden by assuming the names of famous women artists like Frida Kahlo or Georgia O'Keefe. New York and L.A. street-theater demonstrations and agitprop posters, akin to those of ACT-UP and WAC, often attack the artworld establishment with straightforward headcounts-one poster before the 1993 Whitney Biennial stated plainly, "No female black painter or sculptor has been in a Whitney Biennial since 1973." Other messages use sarcasm: "The advantages of being a woman artist: working without the pressure of success, having an escape from the art world in your four freelance jobs, being reassured that whatever art you make will be labeled feminine."