Good Girl! and the Power of the Female Gaze

Are women in art confined strictly to roles as muses or as part of the audience? Guerrilla Girls, a collective of feminist activists in art and culture, once provocatively questioned if women had to be naked to enter the São Paulo Museum of Art. Their question stemmed from worrying statistics: in 2017, only 6% of the artists in the museum’s collection were women, yet  60% of the nudes were female.

This points to a clear bias in how art has historically regarded women — or, perhaps more accurately, the lack of the complexity and plurality of women’s identities. Famous painters such as Leonardo Da Vinci, with his peaceful and steady Mona Lisa, and Pierre-August Renoir, with his angelical Girl with Flowers, often portrayed women through their subjective ideals. Rarely do artists depict women expressing emotions such as anger, rage, and madness — those 'negative' emotions deemed unsuitable for the canvas. Angelical expressions, naked voluptuous or slim bodies, pompous and fairy-ish clothes. As long as they fit this gaze, women could enter the museum.

Although feminist movements have challenged these sexist, patriarchal narratives, a lot remains to be done. Women continue to face neglect across many spheres — education, healthcare, sports, art, and culture among them. And since no prince on a white horse or  a magical carriage is coming to rescue them, the time has come to rewrite the narrative entirely and become the prince. Or simply to go against the prince's narrative. If ‘good girls’ become muses and  ‘bad girls’ become artists, why not consider this: what if there is more? What if girls are just girls, women are just women, and these binary definitions no longer fit in contemporary times? What if ‘good girls’ are those who respect themselves, unapologetically, for who they are?

Curator Ambre Antoine addresses these questions with Good Girl!, an online exhibition that defies the reductive notion that women are merely obedient objects. Through photography, the exhibition challenges traditional, patriarchal ideals. Would Da Vinci or Renoir approve of it? We don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. For too long too many white men have had the opportunity to dominate the narrative. Good Girl! offers the stage for women and queer people to present their perspectives on womanhood and to shake up the traditional gender constructs through photography.

In ‘Good Girl!’ Antoine collaborates with artists Camilla Mecagni, Erin J Coholan, Ivana Tomanovic, Julia Albrecht, Louise Valin, Olena Morozova and Zoé de Meulemeester to create new ways to see – and comprehend – women. This is an invitation to shatter outdated perceptions and embrace the diversity and uniqueness of women’s experiences.

Visit Good Girl!, online from November 25, 2024, to January 27, 2025, and stay tuned for upcoming conversations with participating artists.