In a seminal and inaugural text on feminist art theory written in 1971, American Linda Nochlin set some parameters for the question “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”
Among the various reasons given, Nochlin considers the restriction suffered by women in their artistic education and access to the means of production (and distribution) – it is impossible not to remember the notorious essay by English woman Virginia Woolf on the condition of the woman writer in her book “A Room of One's Own,” from 1929, in which she defends independence – and freedom – as a primordial need for artistic production and improvement.

In the 1980s, the Guerrilla Girls were born. It is to be noted that in Brazil, feminism did not reach art in the same way, and it is only in recent years that we have seen strength in minority social movements.
On the assumption that art museums should present the cultural diversity of a society in their spaces, the Guerrilla Girls defend an ethics of representation in cultural institutions. This group of feminist activists addresses the issue of discrimination by pointing to the two main reasons for their creation: centuries of patriarchal history, and the relationships of power and money that permeate institutions, museums, and art galleries.

The Guerrilla Girls emerged in New York in 1985 as a group of feminist activists angry with an artistic scene that barely recognized the production of women, both in terms of acquisition of works and the opportunity to exhibit their work. Opting for a direct approach to communicate their indignation, they used the aesthetics of advertisement and pamphleteering to demonstrate, through statistics, the inequalities of representation. From the beginning, they adopted humor as a strategy – “Do women have to be naked to enter the Metropolitan?” read a poster plastered throughout the city in 1985, with the iconic image of the odalisque of Ingres“wearing” a gorilla mask. As part of their program of awareness and protest, the Guerrilla Girls participated in demonstrations and manifestations and continue to this day speaking at and collaborating with exhibitions at cultural institutions, above all carrying out events at universities. To focus attention on the subject and protect themselves from reprisals, the members of the group maintain anonymity by wearing gorilla masks in all public appearances.

The collective began with seven artists and, in its thirty years of activity, more than one hundred women have joined its meetings and events. In thematic terms, although feminist claims are at the original core of the artists' work, the argument of representation led them to
discussions about minorities in the 1960s as well as to other spheres of action beyond the universe of art – in 1991 they addressed the Gulf War, for example. If we want to trace a matrilineage of the Guerrilla Girls, it would be pertinent to start with the 1949 publication of “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir, which inaugurates a revolutionary movement in the consciousness of women about their conditions throughout history and about how their lives have been contaminated by thought patterns fed by powe relations based on patriarchy. A little more than ten years later in the US in the 1960s, feminist struggles permeated civil rights movements, both in sociopolitical and cultural spheres. In 1969, the Art Workers' Coalition was created, which, even in its initial discussions, demanded actual
representation of American culture in museums. In these years of demonstrations, women experienced what is considered by theorists and artists as a moment of awakening, which brought to light the structural repression of their gender. The world of art was buffeted by
feminist waves over the following decades, and publications were created with the intention of discussing feminist and minority art.
In a seminal and inaugural text on feminist art theory written in 1971, American Linda Nochlin set some parameters for the question “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Among the various reasons given, Nochlin considers the restriction suffered by women in their artistic education and access to the means of production (and distribution) – it is impossible not to remember the notorious essay by Englishwoman Virginia Woolf on the condition of the woman writer in her book “A Room of One's Own,” from 1929, in which she defends
independence – and freedom – as a primordial need for artistic production and improvement.

In the 1980s, the Guerrilla Girls were born. It is to be noted that in Brazil, feminism did not reach art in the same way, and it is only in recent years that we have seen strength in minority social movements.
In broader terms, the relevance of these women's artistic and activist work is articulately explained by American theorist, writer (and feminist) Lucy R. Lippard:

“Artists cannot change the world... alone. But when they make a concerted effort, they collaborate with life itself. Working with and between other disciplines and audiences, and given the chance to be seriously considered outside the rather narrow world of art, they can offer visual jolts and subtle nudges to conventional knowledge... The popular image of artists as renegades frees them to imagine situations and outcomes beyond the boxes... They can also deconstruct the ways we are manipulated by the powers that be and help open our eyes to
what we must do to resist and survive.”¹

In fact, contact with the work of these feminist artists, writers, and theorists generates an avalanche of reconsiderations about our positions and positionings in contemporary society, in the same way that it provokes a disconcerting mnemonic reconstruction in women. Whether the artistic production is feminist or not, the creations of the women presented in this exhibition - and in museums abroad - can be appreciated through a prism that takes into account that the art produced by them gives voice to enunciators with specific characteristics, even if the art has a universal character.

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Some approximate numbers of the representation of women artists in the main art collections in the city of São Paulo:

Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC-USP) in 2016: 20%
Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP) in 2016: 17%
Pinacoteca* of São Paulo in 2016: 17%
In the exhibition of the permanent collection Art in Brazil: A Story at the Pinacoteca of São Paulo:
4% of the works produced by women
moraes-barbosa collection in 2016: 29%

Sources: Archives of the museums and research by Julia Godinho* conducted in 2014.