Institutional critique artist Andrea Fraser joins Marian Goodman gallery—her first US commercial rep
The US artist Andrea Fraser—a pioneer of the conceptual art movement known as institutional critique, in which the structures of cultural organisations such as art museums and markets are addressed in typically provocative fashion—is now represented by Marian Goodman gallery.
The announcement is notable considering that Fraser, whose work spans performance, as well as film and non-fiction texts, has regularly voiced her disapproval of many aspects of the art industry, and long-attempted to distance herself from it, even while commenting on her inability to do so. She is the latest in a string of mid to late-career women artists with socially conscious practices to sign to major commercial galleries.
Fraser has been practising since the mid 1980s. One of her earliest works took place at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1989, where she played the role of a tour guide, offering a satirical and exaggerated version of a docent’s talk that broached the relationship between institutions and philanthropists. In Little Frank and His Carp (2001), Fraser gyrated half-naked on the walls of the then-newly opened Guggenheim Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry, to lampoon the industry fetishisation of starchitects. Controversial works of Fraser's included Untitled (2003), for which she filmed herself having sex with a collector.
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on The Art Newspaper website.
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