Awards
2009 Distinguished Feminist Award
Guerrilla Girls
Guerrilla Girls montage
In many ways the Guerrilla Girls, recipients of CAA’s inaugural Distinguished Feminist Award, embody the very essence of the spirit of the feminist art world: collaborative, proactive, and persistent. Since 1985 the members of the group have harassed, entertained, shamed, and moved the art world with their direct campaigns that provide statistical information on inequities in the art world. As they adapted 1980s strategies of moving art into the public arena, their masked appearances, performances, and public posters have precisely and pertinently “called out” the art world about its practices and habitual behaviors. The Guerrilla Girls have also used humor and satire to expose gender bias, gender erasure, and gender-centric concepts of creativity and genius. As noted by one nominator—who incidentally is a man—they “have been the most effective organization in changing the art world’s and the general public’s perception of the situation of women in contemporary art. They have certainly changed mine.” Another supporter of this nomination also male, noted that he is “of another gender but of the same spirit as they, and if there were a male auxillary” he would “join in a flash.”
Jury: Lowery Stokes Sims, Museum of Arts and Design, chair; Diane Burko, Philadelphia Community College; and Moira Roth, Mills College.
