Clubbing

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      Martine Gutierrez, Clubbing, 2012, HD video, color, sound; 03:06 minutes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 2021.23.2, © 2012, Martine Gutierrez: Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

      Artwork Details

      Title
      Clubbing
      Date
      2012
      Location
      Not on view
      Copyright
      © 2012, Martine Gutierrez: Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.
      Credit Line
      Museum purchase
      Mediums
      Mediums Description
      HD video, color, sound; 03:06 minutes
      Classifications
      Subjects
      • Figure group
      • Recreation — dancing
      • Architecture Interior — commercial — recreation
      Object Number
      2021.23.2

      Artwork Description

      In her own words, Gutierrez is "driven to question how identity is formed, expressed, valued, and weighed as a woman, as a transwoman, as a Latinx woman, as a woman of Indigenous descent, as a femme artist and maker." Through videos, photographs, performances, installations, and self-released albums and magazines, she incisively plays with stereotypes and their repeated commodification.
       
      Clubbing explores the coding and performance of gender binaries in a scene of multiple selves sharing an otherworldly space that blends fantasy and reality. Gutierrez claims total control of every aspect of her projects, including Clubbing, taking on all the roles in front of and behind the camera. From the painted-on eyes to the sixties' mod costumes to the addictive groove that gets these bodies moving, it all comes back to Gutierrez, alone in her studio, aiming to create a welcoming world for all.
       
      Though on first glance she appears to present heterosexual pairings, Gutierrez's layered drag performances open a kaleidoscope of queer possibility. Filmed through gauze, the hazy indefinability of the locale evokes the idea of queer nightclubs as utopian zones, havens from a dangerously divisive society, since utopia means "no place" in Greek. Celebrating the joys found there, Clubbing stands as an ode to the creativity and liberation of dance floors and their importance as places for self-discovery, interpersonal harmony, and nonconformist community building.

      Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies, 2023

      Works by this artist (3 items)

      Benjamin West, Mary Hopkinson, ca. 1764, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, George Buchanan Coale Collection, 1926.6.1
      Mary Hopkinson
      Artist
      Dateca. 1764
      oil on canvas
      On view
      Benjamin West, Self-Portrait, 1819, oil on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Capitol, 1917.2.3
      Self-Portrait
      Date1819
      oil on paperboard
      Not on view
      Benjamin West, Helen Brought to Paris, 1776, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1969.33
      Helen Brought to Paris
      Date1776
      oil on canvas
      Not on view

      Related Books

      The cover of the publication Musical Thinking New Video Art & Sonic Strategies
      Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies 
      Exploring the powerful resonances between recent video art and popular music, the exhibition Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies features ten leading contemporary artists and the work.

      Exhibitions

      Media - 2020.54.1 - SAAM-2020.54.1_2 - 139600
      Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies
      June 23, 2023January 28, 2024
      Musical Thinking explores the powerful resonances between recent video art and popular music.

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      Jacob Maentel, Portrait of Elizabeth Sweitzer Musser, ca. 1826, watercolor and pen and ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Ralph and Bobbi Terkowitz, 2019.6.5
      Portrait of Elizabeth Sweitzer Musser
      Dateca. 1826
      watercolor and pen and ink on paper
      Not on view
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      Portrait of Adam Musser
      Dateca. 1822
      watercolor and pen and ink on paper
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      Ammi Phillips, Portrait of Helen (Lena) Ten Broeck, 1834, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Ralph and Bobbi Terkowitz, 2019.6.10
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      oil on canvas
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