Artist Joyce Kozloff Reveals Herself to be Guerrilla Girl Lydia Popova
Artist Joyce Kozloff disclosed that she was a founding member of the Guerrilla Girls, revealing her alias as Lydia (Liubov) Popova in an interview published July 22, 2026, in Art Journal Open. The Guerrilla Girls formed in 1984 in response to the Museum of Modern Art’s “International Survey of Painting and Sculpture,” which included 169 artists with fewer than 10% women, and they used anonymity and poster campaigns to criticize exclusion of women and non-white artists. Kozloff said the group’s gorilla-mask identity began after a member misunderstood the name “Guerrilla Girls,” and she argued anonymity kept attention on issues rather than individuals. She also said she helped create the collective’s best-known poster, “The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist” (1988), an idea she developed after observing gendered labor dynamics during the 1985–86 Kohler Arts/Industry Residency in Wisconsin. Kozloff told Ocula she chose to come forward now partly to ensure she could tell the story “her way,” referencing a pact with another member about revealing identities after death.
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This story was covered in Markets Ablaze, Museums Under Fire