10/22/2003

Contact: K.E. Schwab  -- 724-738-2199;  e-mail: karl.schwab@sru.edu

GUERRILLA GIRLS TO BRING FEMINIST ISSUE TO FOREFRONT AT SRU LECTURE

          SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – The Guerrilla Girls, who have been reinventing feminism since 1985,  will bring their thought-provoking presentation to Slippery Rock University at 3:30 p.m., Nov. 4 as way of fighting discrimination with facts, humor -- and fake fur.

          The free presentation, open to the regional community, will be held in Swope Recital Hall. The address is sponsored by SRU’s College of Humanities, Fine and Performing Arts, the President’s Commission of the Status of Women, the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Honors Program, Women Studies Program and the art and English departments.

          The group of anonymous females takes on the names of dead women artists and appears in public wearing gorilla masks, then use humor to convey information, provoke discussion and show that feminists can be funny. The masks are worn to focus on the issues rather than the personalities of the participants according to the group’s printed story. The group has dubbed itself the “conscience of culture.”

           In its 18 years, the group has produced more than 100 posters, stickers, books and print projects that expose sexism and racism in the art world, films, politics and the culture at large. Their posters are part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, the Getty Museum and the New York Public Library. The group has been featured in Vogue, Esquire, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker and has been featured on both U.S. and worldwide television and radio stations. A film about the group, “Guerrillas In Our Midst,” has won numerous awards.

          Guerrilla Girls’ books include, “Confessions of the Guerrilla Girls,” and “Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. A work titled “Guerrilla Girls’ Guide to N.Y.C. Museums” is due in 2004.

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