Genevieve Gaignard, born in
Orange, Massachusetts
Orange is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,569 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Part of the town is included in the census-designated plac ...
in 1981, is best known for work exploring issues of race, class, and gender. As a self-identified mixed-race woman, Gaignard utilizes
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
,
videography, and
installation to explore the overlap of black and white America through staged environments and character performances. She received an AAS in Baking & Pastry Arts from
Johnson & Wales University, her BA in photography from the
Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2007, and an MFA from
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
in 2014. Gaignard's work is represented by
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects Vielmetter Los Angeles (formerly Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects) is a contemporary art gallery founded in 2000 by Susanne Vielmetter. The gallery is located in downtown Los Angeles.
History
Susanne Vielmetter launched her first gallery i ...
, and has been shown at
Shulamit Nazarian, The Cabin, The FLAG Art Foundation, The California African American Museum, The Foley Gallery, and at two residentially-owned art spaces in Los Angeles, CA. She was also included in the fourth iteration of the triennial
Prospect New Orleans
Prospect New Orleans is a multi-venue contemporary art event in New Orleans.
"Prospect.1 New Orleans" ran from November 2008 to January 2009. Conceived in the tradition of the international biennials, such as the Venice Biennale, São Paulo Bienni ...
, in 2018, with an installation at the
Ace Hotel New Orleans. Her work has been featured in
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
and
The Los Angeles Times
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
. Gaignard's photographic series draw inspiration from
Carrie Mae Weems,
Diane Arbus,
Cindy Sherman, and
Nikki S. Lee
Nikki Seung-hee Lee (이승희, born 1970) is a South Korea-born visual artist, living in New York City and Seoul, that works with photography and film.
Early life and education
Lee was born in Geochang, South Korea. During her childhood, Lee ...
, remixed with the references to the
selfie
A selfie () is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a digital camera or smartphone, which may be held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick. Selfies are often shared on social media, via social networking services such as F ...
and Instagram culture.
Early life
Born and raised in a Massachusetts mill town by a white mother and black father, Gaignard grew up between black and white cultures. Before enrolling at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Gaignard first enrolled at
Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, in their baking and pastry program. She became interested in pursuing the arts after one of her professors became her mentor. Her professor created alternative assignments for Gaignard, reintroduced her to mediums such as collage, and opened Gaignard to experimentation in installation. According to Gaignard, she “went through this phase where Abercrombie & Fitch was really cool, I would rip pages out of the catalog and collage my whole wall with half naked guys.”
Gaignard began investigating racial dynamics with the use of composed environments and fabricated characters.
Gaignard began photographing her family and neighbors as she transitioned into the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. For a week of assignments “dealing with flesh,” Gaignard used her mother as a subject.
Following her graduation in 2007, she applied to Yale University where she was wait-listed. Her anxiety surrounding her admission status motivated her to experiment with video art, where she created offbeat films. After she was eventually accepted, Gaignard transitioned back to photographic mediums with the added juxtaposition of installation. Yale's predominantly white student body contrasted sharply with the culturally diverse city of New Haven, prompting Gaignard to think through how to balance her two ethnicities. During her time at Yale, she began incorporating the intensity of race and storytelling in her work: “My expression as a person of color is different than others. I have something to say...The stuff I say now sort of addresses a lot of feelings I had as a child.” It was through her exploration of race and family relations that she began creating personas staged in elaborate domestic interiors.
Work
As an emerging artist, Gaignard first garnered wider attention with her 2016 exhibition Smell the Roses at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles. The exhibition included a number of photographs of Gaignard dressed as a variety of characters alongside two elaborate room-sized installations, one of them a bedroom with a daybed covered in
Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids are a line of cloth dolls with plastic heads first produced by Coleco Industries in 1982. They were inspired by the Little People soft sculptured dolls sold by Xavier Roberts as collectibles. The brand was renamed 'Cabbage ...
dolls. Of the nine photographs featured in the exhibition, "Extra Value (After Venus)", shows Gaignard against a painted American flag holding a
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
cup and fries; another depicts Gaignard as a small-town housewife holding a watermelon in front of a discount store.
Gaignard explores racial “
passing” and gender to address the difficulties of being a mixed race woman in American society. While Gaignard's work is said to be similar to Cindy Sherman and
Carrie Mae Weems, she prefers not to be compared to them. Like Weems, Gaignard's works focuses on black female bodies and their place within society. Gaignard's digital photographs utilize pop culture references and selfie culture to examine mixed race identity and black womanhood. She consistently questions mass media and how it presents white and black cultures by pushing contrasts in her fictitious, femme characters.
Gaignard blends her digital photography with installations evoking the ideal family home. She states, “When I make an installation, I want it to be somewhere between a
Wes Anderson film and
Harmony Korine’s ''Gummo'': gross and perfect at the same time but those are also super white references—so, that’s always my challenge.”
Gaignard exaggerates elements of her personas, posing racial anxieties for viewers through parallel perspectives of her own self-identity. Although racial contrast is important to her characters and her overall work, Gaignard also blurs the lines between representations of black and white women by drawing on current and past pop culture references. By blending representations,
stereotypes, and taking inspiration from drag culture, she further challenges beauty standard norms, while also showing others the “invisibility” she faced growing up.
Gaignard's work is in a number of public collections, including the
Allen Memorial Art Museum
The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is an art museum located in Oberlin, Ohio, and it is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, the collection contains over 15,000 works of art.
Overview
The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed at ...
,
Nasher Museum of Art,
California African American Museum,
Pérez Art Museum Miami,
Studio Museum in Harlem
The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...
, and
San Jose Museum of Art
The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast of the United Sta ...
.
Exhibitions
Bibliography
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaignard, Genevieve
1981 births
People from Orange, Massachusetts
Artists from Los Angeles
American women artists
Living people
Yale School of Art alumni
Massachusetts College of Art and Design alumni
21st-century American women