Guerrilla Girls, American, est. 1985
10 Trashy Ideas About the Environment, 1994
“I like to use plastic, especially for making art about the environment. After all, art is eternal, and so is plastic.”
Founded in New York in 1985, the Guerrilla Girls are an anonymous collective of women artists who create protest art that exposes sexual and racial discrimination in the art world and beyond. 10 Trashy Ideas About the Environment was created in 1994 and comes from the Guerrilla Girls Portfolio Compleat, a collection of works representing over 30 years of the group’s art activism. The printed plastic bag here lists ten wrongful ideas about the environment, demonstrating people’s ignorance, stupidity, and thoughtlessness when it comes to environmental preservation, conservation, and even art production. By printing their work on a literal plastic bag, the group creates a compelling observation on the irony of art creation, demonstrating how the materiality of art itself can damage the environment. Label by Isabel Williams