gorillagirlsTiffanyMedler
The Gorilla Girls provided a topic that I was honestly unaware of. I thought that the days of discrimination were minimal; however we see examples of this even in Calder Art Center. For example, the result of requiring students to have ¡§optional¡¨ (a) removable media, (b) a digital camera of 3.0 pixels or greater, (c) a laptop computer, and (c) all projects mounted on $5 illustration board makes art an expensive subject to study. And, considering minority groups are the most likely group to live in poverty (proportionally) and Caucasian peoples are the least likely group (proportionally) living in poverty, there is a gap between ethnic groups who can afford a Grand Valley art education, and those who can¡¦t regardless of federal aid. How is Calder Art Center¡¦s racial discrimination any different than the Gorilla Girls¡¦ discriminatory appeals?The Gorilla Girls presentation addressed how women artists are discriminated from artistic recognition and are stereotyped as the angry bitchy, witchy woman. Letters from naive writers, the campaign for female artist awareness, and stereotypical Barbie dolls are all examples of this. With such controversial topics, such as religion, it was appropriate for the speaker to use humor. Most distinctly, the Barbie dolls having humorous personality traits as the Gorilla Girls purposely don¡¦t give out their personalities, only ideas. This idea paints a picture for how easily women can become a mockery when you assume you already know them and their personalities.
The Gorilla Girls used the process of gaining statistics, facts, and information in sarcastic ways in various forms. The most comical instance of the process in which they performed this process was in the letters written to the group. It was hilarious to see how stupid and ignorant people are in thinking that women are stupid and are in denial that there isn¡¦t a discriminatory issue regarding women in art.
A concept form the Gorilla Girls that we can address in the Studio would be anger and ¡§pissed-off-ness.¡¨ The way that the Gorilla Girls have used their anger has created a wave of public attention and awareness in humorous ways. And, anger towards society has been presented in a positive form of good artwork. And in fact, a lot of art has been created (by men, of course ƒº ) from the feeling anger and frustration.
Though I was unaware of the anti-feminism that occurs in modern-day female artwork, the Gorilla Girls have given a positive way to create artwork that portrays such frustration to inform the people that this really is an issue. Discrimination in art occurs not only with women in the entire country, but also in minority groups on a local level; it¡¦s everywhere! However, with more awareness, it is possible to take an approach to gradually lessen the issue.
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- Tiffany Medler last edited on 21 March 2007 at 9:52 pm by 148.61.212.226
- Studio Writing: Gorilla Girls last edited on 9 April 2007 at 10:46 am by 148.61.85.8