The Guerrilla Girls: The Advantages Of Being A Woman Artist
Perhaps the Guerilla Girls’ most famous work, The Advantages Of Being A Woman Artist is a poster created 1988 steeped in the irony of being a woman artist in a time where your work is not valued on the basis of your gender. It was not commissioned by anyone, simply originated from the group as yet another creative way to garner attention for disparities between men and women artists. One key aspect of this piece is the black bolded uppercase letters, a stylistic choice of the Guerilla Girls but also of the various protest movements of the time, most closely aligned with second wave feminism, but also civil rights and gay rights movements that had preceded it. The focus of the poster is clear due to the plain black on white poster design, highlighting the legibility and plainness of the words for people to clearly understand their message. This basic, neutral design exemplified the message of the piece, which is that all of these “advantages” are both common place and unjust for women artists to experience in their careers. This poster is concise and clear, designed simply to get the message across, rather than to be pretty or fun. The sardonic tone carries the piece as being a signature of the Guerilla Girls style. It is photo-offset lithograph on paper, a basic medium of the period. The high contrast of the piece is not only reflective of the morality of the issues, but of many other informative posters in the artists’ portfolio.