Project 3: Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?

     The 1989 piece titled “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?” addresses the sexualization of women’s bodies in highly regarded paintings and artwork, and how ironically, “85% of the nudes are female” in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (an art museum in New York City), while “less than 5% of the artists in the modern art section are female”.

     “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?” is notable for many reasons. Firstly, this is one of the first posters produced by the Guerrilla Girls’ that uses a variety of eye-catching colors as opposed to previous posters which were black and white, or utilized one color. This piece uses grayscale in addition to the bright colors pink and yellow, which almost create the illusion of vibration when juxtaposed. Secondly, up until this point the Guerrilla Girls’ posters made effective use of text based posters. But this poster incorporates imagery in addition to statics the Guerrilla Girls gathered while spending a day surveying the Met. They parodied a famous nude painting of a woman, La Grande Odalisque by Jean-August-Dominique Ingres, by taking the naked figure laying back in a relaxed position and placing a gorilla head over her face. Third, it really showed the boldness and passion for equal representation that the Guerrilla Girls possessed, as they went after the Met with the intention of shaming and humiliating such a prestigious art institution.  

     This poster also demonstrated their advertisement minded design in their choice of colors to get people’s attention, the bold typeface used, and use of color text to emphasize important elements of the statistics. Making it even more advertisement-like, the Guerrilla Girls paid for the poster put on the sides of New York City buses in the advertising spaces, until an outraged public caused the bus companies to disallow it from being shown. People were shocked, as they deemed the figure indecent and suggestive.

     The work has been described as “iconic”(Seiferle), as it encompasses the style of the Guerrilla Girls: humor, use of facts and statistics, and advertisement style that can be found in so many of their works.

Sources Cited: 

Manchester, Elizabeth. “Do women have to be naked to get Into the Met.Musem?.” Tate.org.uk, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-do-women-have-to-be-naked-to-get-into-the-met-museum-p78793.

Seiferle, Rebecca. “The Guerrilla Girls Artist Overview and Analysis.” TheArtStory.org, http://www.theartstory.org/artist-guerrilla-girls.htm.