look they lied to us
Erin Gould
Opening reception: Friday, August 9, 6-10pm
Closing reception: Friday September 6, 6-10pm
The cultural associations between flowers and humans have a broad, rich history but the specific association between flowers and femininity/ female sexual maturity and marriageability is directly related to the Linnaean understanding of vegetal reproduction that was developed and disseminated along with his classification system. Floral patterned lace lingerie as a style and symbol for “blooming” women can similarly be related to this pervasive cultural understanding of femininity that developed due to the Enlightenment obsession with classification and solidified during the Victorian era-- a femininity that is passive, beautiful, consumable, meant for heterosexual marriage, and opposed to masculinity. The Linnaean emphasis on the simplicity, clarity, and legibility of taxonomies and organisms’ place within those taxonomic systems promoted the crystallization of a strict gender binary with distinct and impenetrable differences established between the two supposed opposites. But, just as 90% of flowering plants contain some combination of pollen producing (i.e. “male”) and seed bearing (i.e. “female”) reproductive structures, human gender is diffuse and enigmatic. These categories, whether they be those defined in botanical taxonomy between class/ order/ family/ genus/ species, or those between “man” and “woman,” were created by humans with oppressive, violent, colonial understandings of the world and are fiction. “look they lied to us” is an exploration of these ideas through fragmented tracings of 18th and 19th century botanical illustrations and lace, deconstructed gendered garments the artist used to wear, found text and video, and collected “curiosities”.
Erin Gould
Opening reception: Friday, August 9, 6-10pm
Closing reception: Friday September 6, 6-10pm
The cultural associations between flowers and humans have a broad, rich history but the specific association between flowers and femininity/ female sexual maturity and marriageability is directly related to the Linnaean understanding of vegetal reproduction that was developed and disseminated along with his classification system. Floral patterned lace lingerie as a style and symbol for “blooming” women can similarly be related to this pervasive cultural understanding of femininity that developed due to the Enlightenment obsession with classification and solidified during the Victorian era-- a femininity that is passive, beautiful, consumable, meant for heterosexual marriage, and opposed to masculinity. The Linnaean emphasis on the simplicity, clarity, and legibility of taxonomies and organisms’ place within those taxonomic systems promoted the crystallization of a strict gender binary with distinct and impenetrable differences established between the two supposed opposites. But, just as 90% of flowering plants contain some combination of pollen producing (i.e. “male”) and seed bearing (i.e. “female”) reproductive structures, human gender is diffuse and enigmatic. These categories, whether they be those defined in botanical taxonomy between class/ order/ family/ genus/ species, or those between “man” and “woman,” were created by humans with oppressive, violent, colonial understandings of the world and are fiction. “look they lied to us” is an exploration of these ideas through fragmented tracings of 18th and 19th century botanical illustrations and lace, deconstructed gendered garments the artist used to wear, found text and video, and collected “curiosities”.
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Erin Gould is a multimedia artist and educator working between sculpture, video, printmaking, and performance to investigate relations between human bodies and more-than-human bodies/ corporeal presence and tangible absence/ capitalist ideologies and quotidian manifestations of white supremacy. Much of their work investigates vegetal intelligence and autonomy, connections between extractive ideologies and ecological harm, and colonial notions of the gender binary. Gould currently works and resides on the occupied Tewa lands known as Albuquerque, New Mexico, received their MFA from the University of New Mexico, and likes to think that the plants in Oregon, Colorado, and New Mexico have been just as formative as their academic education.
www.erinlouisegould.com |
