THE GUERRILLA GIRLS are out in force this summer. This campaigning collective of anonymous female artists was first launched in 1985 to battle against cultural bigotry, to expose sexual inequalities in the art world. Twenty years — and hundreds of posters, stickers and projects — later, they are still going strong. They have certainly made their mark, not least with their vast billboards at this year’s Venice Biennale. But is their message still needed? Or are gallery-goers starting to feel a little hen-pecked?
London has recently hosted shows by Gwen John and Lee Miller. It is currently in the grip of Frida Kahlo fanaticism. And today a new candidate for the feminist canon is proposed, as the Courtauld Institute opens a concise but eye-catching exhibition of Gabriele Münter. The woman who developed in the shadow of her far more famous lover, Kandinsky, is presented as a card-carrying Expressionist in her own right.
Women have graced the Western art scene since Pliny the Elder reported on six of them, even going so far as to rate Iaia of Kyzikos above her male compeers — with the proviso of course that she remained a virgin.
Discussing Sister Plautilla, Vasari declared that she could have done wondrous things “if she had enjoyed, as men do, advantages for studying”.
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This could almost have been written by a modern feminist, by Linda Nochlin, for instance, whose study of women artists suggests that the reason art history encounters no Leonardo, Rembrandt or Picasso among the fairer sex is because women were denied the opportunities (they were bound by domestic duties) and training (they could not enrol in art academies until the second half of the 19th century) to attain their potential.
This may, in part, be true. But ideas also have to find their time to flourish. Artemisia Gentileschi, however notorious in her day, was only rediscovered and accorded due respect (and, eventually, a pretty dreadful Hollywood biopic) some three centuries after her death. But then the same could be said of her male role model, Caravaggio, who, though few would deny that his talents were superior, languished unnoticed until well into the 20th century when Robert Longhi, the Italian art historian, rescued him from obscurity to find that his passionate temperament spoke powerfully to contemporary tastes. Modern-day interests lent him a new audience.
Feminism has created a strong new consumer group for women’s art. But this group is not necessarily well served by going back over old ground, grubbing up candidates to validate the status of today’s female artists.
Of course talent does not depend upon testosterone, but to lay offering after offering upon the altars of feminism, ending up with some collection of embroidered quilts, is merely to popularise, not truly to appreciate.
Why overemphasise often mediocre careers? It is better to accept that, if cultural conditions formerly repressed female talent, it has the opportunity to flourish in the climate we are creating now. We should focus on the present if we want future historians to look back and find a female Rembrandt. And by then, I hope, the Guerrilla Girls’ posters will look as outmoded as the murals of Diego Rivera who, in his day, was considered so superior to Kahlo, his wife and now a superstar.