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Tina Girouard

tina.girouard@cox.net

Unrepresented

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Exhibition History

TINA GIROUARD was born in 1946 in Louisiana and migrated to New York to join the contemporary art movements of the late 60's and the 70's. She shared her studio in Chinatown with musicians Richard Landry and the Philip Glass Ensemble for a decade. She was an early founding participant of 112 Greene St., FOOD, the Clocktower and PS1, Creative Time, Performance Art and the Fabric Workshop. In addition to her own 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. She collaborated with Sonnier, Deborah Hay and on many efforts with Gordon Matta Clark. I mention her associates because she is not well known, except to them. In 1979, after a massive fire destroyed her building, she moved to a small space across the street from the World Trade Center and moved her main studio to Louisiana. There she traveled for projects and shared her experience, helping to promote Louisiana's culture by creating visual arts venues and an international festival that brings Francophone music, dance, theatre, visual and culinary arts from Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Caribbean, wherever French is spoken. Since 1990, she has maintained a studio in Port-au-Prince, Haiti where again she devoted herself to work beyond her art by writing the first book to recognize the Sequin Artists of Haiti. Most important to Tina is that her projects saved lives by giving Haitian artists respect in their own country and by bringing them and their art, performing and visual, to the United States. I can speak of this because I was with her in Port-au-Prince in 1994, when bullets were zinging and fists flew in our direction at carnival street performances Tina presented, called "Rara St. Isidor." I had traveled to Haiti to curate an exhibition of her work, the traditional Voodoo Flags of Antoine Oleyant and their contemporary collaborations. "Under a Spell" traveled widely and ended in 2002, at the Bronx River Arts Center.

Girouard is a distinguished multi-disciplinary artist recognized for installation works, performances, video/film and static works made of non-traditional media such as wallpaper, linoleum, fabric, stamped steel and sequins as well as paint on canvas. Her latest works combine both media and discipline. Girouard's career has been largely outside the gallery system owing to a preference for non-profit organizations and exhibition venues with broader public audiences and community involvement. She has received numerous fellowships and grants for projects. Her works are in some important museum and private collections but especially in artists' collections. Among the high points of Girouard's exhibition history were invitations to international events such as Documenta 6 in Germany, the Venice Biennial, Paris Biennial and in 1983, a mid-career retrospective mounted at the Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City. Albert Raurell, the Museum’s Director, opened the exhibition catalogue with this remark, "Tina Girouard es una artista para los artistas, como se podria afirmar en el caso de Marcel Duchamp."

Michael Swindle, 2005