A Lexicon of Evidence: Tina Girouard at Magenta Plains

The late artist’s DNA-Icons, never-before-seen fabric works, shed light on the re-invention of signs and language.

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A Lexicon of Evidence: Tina Girouard at Magenta Plains

By Stephen Wozniak

Tina Girouard: Conflicting Evidence
September 17–October 26, 2024

Magenta Plains
149 Canal Street
New York, NY 10002
+1 (917) 388 2464
magentaplains.com

EXCERPT

“Inventing vocabularies has been and remains my mode of art making.”
—Tina Girouard (1946–2020)

Sometimes, the language we’re assigned doesn’t do the job intended. Sometimes, words don’t add up to the many thoughts that define who we are and the relationships we share. And now in an age when we’re engulfed by the sheer proliferation and profane alteration of diverse data, communications and imagery, wouldn’t it be nice to fundamentally express what we think and feel and––most importantly––be heard clearly? It seems like such a straightforward request with a simple solution. But it isn’t. A few decades ago, I imagine that artist Tina Girouard faced the same question and, like her near-peer Matt Mullican, sought answers. While Pictures Generation artist Mullican focused on knowledge systems, perception and representation in his gigantic, flat, universal-icon wall art, Girouard instead used simple symbols related to women’s daily life, work and home in her installations, which mixed live public performance with real objects in here-and-now, multidimensional space. She was always directly involved—in body, mind and spirit—expressing her commitment to the act of making, as much as to the evidence that her act gave birth to. She often seemed to leave some part of her personal experience, like traces of DNA, in that work. This was equally true in her wall art.

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