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Collage of five diverse artworks from the Hammer Museum Collections side by side. From left to right: 1) Contemporary painting of two embracing figures with surreal elements. 2) Post-impressionist style painting of trees with vibrant blues and greens. 3) Black and white illustration of a face with intricate patterns. 4) Japanese woodblock print style image of a figure in a checkered robe. 5) Photograph of a couple dancing, the woman in a black dress and the man in white

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Digital Archive Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology
Art The V-Girls, Andrea Fraser, The Question of Manet's "Olympia": Posed and Skirted
The Question of Manet's "Olympia": Posed and Skirted, by the V-Girls, 1989–90

The V-Girls, Artist
The Question of Manet's "Olympia": Posed and Skirted , 1989–90

Medium
Single-channel video, color, sound
Dimensions
64:00 min.
Credit Line
Courtesy of the artists. Video stills courtesy of Berkeley Art Museum

The now-defunct V-Girls (Martha Baer, Jessica Chalmers, Erin Cramer, Andrea Fraser, Marianne Weems) was a performance collaborative of women artists who created humorous critiques of art historical discourse. Presented as a panel—a ubiquitous form of public program at academic conferences or accompanying exhibitions—during Mary Kelly's exhibition Interim at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City in 1990, The Question of Manet's "Olympia": Posed and Skirted features each character presenting a "paper" about Manet's famous depiction of a nude reclining woman. Drawing on disciplines including art history, feminism, and psychoanalysis, the presentations—with titles like "Manet's Olympia: The Beginning of the End of a Good Idea" and "The Representation of Representation and the Representation of Representation"—become humorous and playful, pointing to power dynamics and the role of language embedded in institutions.