Tina Girouard’s Enigmatic Symbols Await Interpretation
Tina Girouard, Conflicting Evidence (1980). Fabric Workshop DNA-Icons panels with pigment on commercially printed fabrics. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA. 108 x 144 in. Courtesy of the Estate of Tina Girouard and Magenta Plains.
Tina Girouard has made a triumphant and mysterious return to New York, with simultaneous exhibitions at the Center for Art, Research, and Alliances (CARA), Anat Ebgi Gallery, and Magenta Plains, the latter of which is only a few blocks away from Chatham Square where the artist lived and worked in the 1970s. While in New York, she embarked on a number of luminous, ambitious, and communal projects—perhaps most famously FOOD, an eatery-cum-conceptual space she ran with Gordon Matta-Clark and Carol Goodden, serving up relational aesthetics with a side of gumbo.
Currently on view at Magenta Plains is a body of work practically unseen since its creation in 1980, shortly after the artist moved back to her home state of Louisiana following a fire that destroyed her New York space. Entitled DNA-Icons, 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.
Tina Girouard, Fire, Death (1980). Fabric Workshop DNA-Icons panels with pigment on commercially printed fabrics. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA. 35 1/2 x 71 in. Courtesy of the Estate of Tina Girouard and Magenta Plains.
Though fabricated collaboratively, this series evidences a solitary and opaque process of ideation. Printed on each fabric panel is a kind of pictogram invented and awarded meaning by the artist. A small drawing called Pictionary (1979) acts as a legend for the motifs Girouard was creating at this time. Flitting between easy legibility and murky opacity, many of her symbols represent primordial features—things universally familiar: “earth,” “land,” “child,” and “death.” The forms of these symbols recall pictographic writing systems such as hieroglyphics. Some are straightforward, like the stacked waves of “water.” Others reference a post-industrial world: “fire” is three lit matches, acknowledging how a modern audience might access or encounter fire. “House” is an architectural floor plan, giving an aerial view of what looks to be a construction document. “Tina” uses the dots that make up the letters of the artist’s name in braille, though depicted visually. Drawing on myriad disparate strategies, she generates her own self-contained system.
Every square panel appears to be commercially printed quilting fabric, each with a different retro print. Some are polka-dotted; others have tropical patterns or collaged black-and-white glamor shots of Hollywood actresses. The symbols are screen-printed onto pre-printed textiles, indexing technologies of repetition and underlining the necessary reproducibility of signs that grant them meaning.
Tina Girouard, Swamp, House, Conflicting Evidence (1980). Fabric Workshop DNA-Icons panels with pigment on commercially printed fabrics. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA. 105 x 35 1/4 in. Courtesy of the Estate of Tina Girouard and Magenta Plains.
Many of the works consist of multiple panels; the symbols begin to string together, spelling out sentence fragments or thoughts. Across a dozen works, viewers are tasked with decoding Girouard’s communications. Though her corner labels are certainly helpful, knowledge of each symbol’s meaning seldom provides clarity. Swamp, House, Conflicting Evidence, a vertically arranged trio in black, yellow, and white variations, is inscrutable, echoed by a similarly vertical work in yellow and white—Child, Conflicting Evidence, House. Individual symbols are arranged and recontextualized like puzzle pieces, giving the impression of repeated attempts to express and obscure meaning.
Tina Girouard, Child, Tina, Gonna Go, Conflicting Evidence (1980). Fabric Workshop DNA-Icons panels with pigment on commercially printed fabrics. In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA. 69 3/4 x 70 1/2 in. Courtesy of the Estate of Tina Girouard and Magenta Plains.
Despite her self-titled symbol, it is unclear if this series is autobiographical. Though some works, such as Water, Water, Water, imply common understanding, others seem distinctly personal and specific to the artist. Fire, House may point to the fire that destroyed her New York home. Works such as Child, Tina clearly imply a story or relationship, but what is that story? Child, Tina, Gonna Go, Conflicting Evidence seems to elaborate on said story, adding enigmatic and sinister urgency.
The titular symbol, “conflicting evidence,” is perhaps the most perplexing of all. Resembling the Rod of Asclepius—the snake-wrapped staff of medical meaning––it stretches diagonally across its fabric squares. What is the evidence? What conflicts? Walking through the exhibition at times feels like trying to solve a mystery. One gets the distinct sense that the artist, who passed away in 2020, is trying to communicate something, but without the artist herself as the mediating key, much information remains unknown. Instead, we trace a trail of breadcrumbs, following her shadowy presence, her own remaining conflicting evidence.
Tina Girouard: Conflicting Evidence is on view at Magenta Plains, New York, until October 26th, 2024.
