“Creative complaining works!” That's one of the main takeaways from the new book Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly, out now from Chronicle.
Over the course of nearly 200 pages, readers dive into 34 years of visual activism spearheaded by the anonymous and oh-so-clever Guerrilla Girls. These masked avengers began their crusade in New York City in 1985, and have since welcomed over 55 members to fight to “expose gender and ethnic bias as well as corruption in politics, art, film and pop culture.”
What started with neutral backgrounds and bold black lettering has turned into a signature design style full of in-your-face imagery and plenty of well-researched facts to shock you into action. Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly is the first book to document the fearsome feminists’ long and provocative legacy—all the way up through the 2019 campaign that called out museums with financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
The visuals speak for themselves, but the Guerrilla Girls have added text throughout the book to help contextualize each project. Moreover, “More than a monograph, Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly is a call to arms—each copy comes with a punch-out gorilla mask that invites readers to step up and join the movement themselves.”
Won’t you don one?
