Arts & Minds

Founding Guerrilla Girls member, "Frida Kahlo" was at Fairfield University’s Oak Room, on September 23rd to deliver "Guerrilla Girls: A Dialogue on Discrimination in Art, Media, and Politics." This fun and fact-filled performance, outlined the group’s creative process and actions, and was followed by a Q&A with the audience and with exhibition curator Neysa Page-Lieberman. The Guerrilla Girls have been powerfully and consistently active since first breaking onto the art scene in 1985. Appearing only in gorilla masks and assuming the names of dead women artists, the activist group has remained anonymous for nearly three decades while revealing shocking truths about sexism and prejudice in the art world and beyond. Beginning with their courageous poster campaigns of the 1980s and continuing with large-scale international projects, they brilliantly take on the art establishment in a way that has never been seen before or since. Using “facts, humor, and fake fur,” they have exposed the discriminatory collecting and exhibiting practices of the most feared art dealers, curators, and collectors. Expanding their work to include non-visual arts media in the 1990s, the Guerrilla Girls have taken on everything from the discrimination of women film directors to the environmental crisis. The Westport Arts Center was a community partner for this event, which was made possible in part by a grant from the Humanities Institute, College of Arts and Sciences, Fairfield University.