How to Enjoy the Battles of the Sexes (project for The New Yorker), from the portfolio Guerrilla Girls' Most Wanted: 1985-2006

Inscriptions

Signed, in graphite, on reverse, lower left: Guerrilla Girls; signed and inscribed, center right: Helpful hints for women from the / Guerrilla Girls

Label

Founded in New York in 1985, the Guerilla Girls made it their mission to question gender and racial inequality within the art world. The group employed political collages and sarcastic text to make bold statements about a history of exclusion, as seen in How to Enjoy the Battle of the Sexes. Layering the iconic Guerilla Girls’ mask atop an ancient Greek rendering of women battling men, this print intertwines a past history of gender struggle with a modern reconsideration of gender inclusion. Black text below offers facts about gender equality, while scribbled statements in red sarcastically respond that this sexist reality can become "enjoyable." For example, women do not need to "be afraid of being lonely at the top, because [they’ll] never get there." The overlay of ancient and present imagery is an jarring visual reminder that if not resisted, historical traditional of inequality will endure.

From the 2020 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 99, When Art Intersects History, curated by Allison Carrey '20, Class of 1954 Intern

Course History

FREN 7, French Graphic Novels, Annabelle Cone, Spring 2013

ENVS 80, Writing Our Way Home: The Writing That Sustains Us, Terry Tempest Williams, Spring 2013

ENGL 74.05, Word-Image Theory, Michael Chaney, Fall 2019

RUSS 7.06, Doing Things with Words, Ainsley Morse, Winter 2020

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 99, When Art Intersects History, Allison Carey, Class of 2020, Class of 1954 Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 7-April 26, 2020.

Constructing Gender: Works from the Hood Museum of Art's Collection, 1500 to the Present, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, ARTH 2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 28-April 22, 2012.

Word and Image in Contemporary Art, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 26-August 4, 2013.

Publication History

Allison Carey, A Space for Dialogue 99, When Art Intersects History, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2020.

Provenance

Guerrilla Girls, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2006.

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Subjects