Did anyone catch the Guerrilla Girls’ brief appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert? Masked members of the anonymous feminist art collective gave a short introduction to what they do, and gave some really good answers as to why we should care about what museums collect.
When Colbert asked about the important of even noticing the gender of artists—something many museum attendees probably never consider—”Frida” responded, “Art should look like the rest of our culture… you know, unless all the voices of our culture are being heard in the history of art it’s not really the history of art”
That’s pretty much the recurring answer to every topic raised, from art history: “for years kings and queens told us what art was all about, now we aspire to a democratic society and art should be about all of us,” to contemporary museum acquisitions being governed by a handful of billionaires with “cookie-cutter” collections.
There weren’t many eye-openers here, but it’s pretty impressive that the Guerrilla Girls’ feminist introduction to museum politics made its way into the mainstream media.
Watch the video!