Feminist Art was started with the goals of equal representation and respect for female artists, and for a proliferation of women’s issues and identity in art (Gouda). During this early period there was a lot of debate over the meaning and goals of feminist art and critique, and themes such as fine art verses craft, representations of the body, and sexuality were discussed (gouda). From the beginning of this movement feminist art featured very diverse media and subject matter (aagerston). These forms include posters, installation, video, and performance, in addition to the more traditional forms of painting and photography (aagerstoun). Feminist art in its most essential form believes in the ability to create change through participation with and the reception of feminist art (aagertoun). Feminist art is meant in essence to be activist, constructive, and critical; It is critical of institutional structures and ideologies of society which privilege the wealthy, white male, and oppress women and people of colour, amongst others (aagerstoun). To meet these aims, feminist art must be visible, but female artists have historically been low in numbers and this trend continues today …show more content…
The artists’ collective use reproduction and humour to spread information and to create a dialogue which is often critical of specific institutions (brand). The Guerrilla Girls art work Do women have to be naked to get into the Met[ropolitian] Museum, an example of which is displayed in the “Media Networks” gallery, (see Figure 3) is a type of feminist satire that involves the viewer knowing the original work of art and serves to criticise the original (brand). In this case, the head of a Guerrilla, as the artists themselves wear, is placed over a reclining nude, specifically on Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s nineteenth century painting Odalisque and Slave, thus satirizing the sexualized male gaze and reclaiming the agency of the sex slave shown in the artwork (Tate met). Feminist art has not been well received by critics or the general population in comparison to other art done by women due to it’s provocative and critical nature, and this work was no exception (brand). The Guerrilla Girls originally wanted to make a billboard out of the print but was rejected, so they tried to advertise it on buses but their contract was cancelled because the image was deemed too graphic (Tate met). Feminist art receives a lot of criticism around the graphic nature of the representations of female bodies; critics going so far as to claim it as