Tina Girouard | |
|---|---|
 Tina Girouard in 1970 in video art performanceMaintenance I | |
| Born | Cynthia Marie Girouard (1946-05-26)May 26, 1946 |
| Died | April 21, 2020(2020-04-21) (aged 73) |
| Education | BFA, University of Southwestern Louisiana (1968) |
| Known for | Video and Performance Art |
| Notable work | FOOD |
| Movement | Postminimalism |
Cynthia Marie "Tina" Girouard (May 26, 1946 – April 21, 2020) was an Americanvideo andperformance artist best known for her work and involvement in theSoHo art scene of the 1960s and early 1970s.[1][2][3]
Cynthia Marie Girouard was born in 1946 atDeQuincy, Louisiana,[4][5] to Yvelle Marie (Theriot) Girouard, aspecial education teacher, and Whitney Lewis Girouard, a farmer and teacher ofagricultural engineering.[5] She studied art at theUniversity of Southwestern Louisiana, graduating with a BFA in 1968.[2]
When she moved toNew York City, Tina Girouard befriended other Louisiana-born artists, includingLynda Benglis, musician/artist Richard "Dickie" Landry, andKeith Sonnier.[6] Their work helped establish New York City'spost-minimalist scene.[6]
Although not as widely recognized as some of her contemporaries, she was an early founding participant of the art spaces 112 Greene Street which becameWhite Columns,FOOD, The Clocktower,P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center,Creative Time, andThe Fabric Workshop and Museum.[7] In addition to her own art projects she was involved in films, videos and performances by Keith Sonnier,Richard Serra,Lawrence Weiner,Laurie Anderson and the Natural History of the American Dancer, among others.[7] Girouard worked as a designer with the New York theater groupMabou Mines in the seventies on several productions includingThe Red Horse Animation andThe B. Beaver Animation.[8] Along withCarol Goodden andGordon Matta-Clark, Girouard was one of the founders ofFOOD, an artist-run restaurant in Soho that combinedculinary arts with other visual andperformance art practices.[9][10] At FOOD, the acts of cooking and eating were seen as art performances.[11] In 1977 Girouard performed with Gerard Murrell as part of the performance program ofDocumenta 6.[12]
For her contribution to the 1981 exhibitionOther Realities: Installations for Performance at theContemporary Arts Museum Houston, Girouard led a ten-day workshop with local students and then turned material generated during the workshop into the basis for a performance. The remnants of the performance, including costumes, sets, and props, were then exhibited as an installation.[13] Girouard's work was featured in a solo exhibition curated bySusan Rothenberg at CUE Art Foundation in 2004.[7] More recently it was shown as part of112 Greene Street: The Early Years (1970-1974) curated by Jessamyn Fiore atDavid Zwirner Gallery in New York in 2011,[14] and included in the related publication of the same title.[15] Fiore also curatedGordon Matta-Clark, Suzanne Harris, and Tina Girouard: The 112 Greene Street Years at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery inChicago in 2013.
In 2013 Girouard participated in the tribute to FOOD organized byFrieze New York.[16]
Girouard's 1977 installation performance piecePinwheel, originally executed at theNew Orleans Museum of Art, was recreated alongside documentation of the original event at the 2019 edition ofArt Basel Miami Beach.[17]
In 2019, Girouard was one of the artists selected for the multi-country retrospective exhibition calledPattern, Crime & Decoration atLe Consortium inDijon France.[18] The same year, Girouard'sPinwheel[2] was shown by gallery Anat Ebgi atThe Art Basel Miami Beach Art Fair[3][4]. In 2020, Girouard's first solo exhibition in Los Angeles,A Place That Has No Name[5], took place at Anat Ebgi Gallery[6]. The show was featured inArtforum[7]. In 2024 Girouard exhibited in New York City at gallery Magenta Plains.[19]
In 2024, her textile works in theDNA-Icons series are featured in a solo exhibition titledConflicting Evidence at Magenta Plains, New York. Art critic Theodora Bocanegra Lang writes in a review published inIMPULSE Magazine: "This series of hanging screen-printed banners was produced in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. These works embrace and experiment with new ways of using contemporary textiles while furthering and complicating Girouard’s interest in communal action and communication."[20]
Girouard died of astroke at her home inCecilia, Louisiana on April 21, 2020.[4][5] She was 73.
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