Exhibition marks the acclaimed artist’s first major solo show in Canada

JUNE 4, 2024 (VANCOUVER, CANADA) — The Polygon Gallery presents Martine Gutierrez’s ANTI-ICON: APOKALYPSIS from July 12–Sept. 29, 2024. The highly anticipated solo exhibition by the internationally renowned artist brings together 17 self-portraits in which Gutierrez transforms herself into a pantheon of influential heroines from myths and legends, art history and religion. The daring series first gained a following when select images were circulated on bus shelters in New York, Chicago, and Boston. This will be the first time the photographs are being presented together in one space.

“In this landmark series of works, Martine Gutierrez refuses ready understandings of identity, gender, and culture,” says Elliott Ramsey, Curator at The Polygon Gallery. “Icons carry authority in their highly symbolic and instant recognizability. The artist challenges what it means to be an icon and who or what becomes iconic. She reconstructs our understanding of the world’s culture and offers up her own, multilayered and distinct interpretations with both irreverence and style.”

Martine Gutierrez (b. 1989, Berkeley, CA) is a transdisciplinary artist, performing, writing, composing, and directing elaborate narrative scenes that subvert pop-cultural tropes in the exploration of identity. Through works created in diverse media — music videos, billboard campaigns, episodic films, photographs, live performance artworks, and publications — Gutierrez investigates identity as both a social construct and an authentic expression of self. These complex intersections are innate to Gutierrez’s own multicultural upbringing as a first-generation artist of Indigenous descent and as an LGBTQ+ ally.

The exhibition title speaks to how the artist stretches the notion of the self, while challenging our understanding of iconic figures that have been endlessly reproduced and depicted. The artist defines the title as:

ANTI-ICON: 1. the transgressor or antagonist of veneration and obedience; 2. the subversion of a figure or representation widely admired for having great influence or significance in a particular sphere, often regarded as holy and worthy of worship; 3. a representation of both the beginning and the end, prophesied as an omen of rebirth associated with the apocalypse.

APOKALYPSIS: from Greek apokálypsis “revelation,” equivalent to apokalýp(tein) “to uncover, reveal” (apo- “away, off, apart” + kalýptein “to cover, conceal”)

Gutierrez uses the barest of essentials in her costumes and set design, incorporating everyday items from garbage bags to zip ties, cardboard and tinsel. Yet each transformation is complete, photographed in the style of luxury fashion magazines. Gutierrez remakes herself again and again into:

● Aphrodite, an ancient Greek goddess of love, desire and beauty, identified by the Romans as “Venus”

● Ardhanarishvara, a composite male-female figure of the Hindu god Shiva together with his consort Parvati

● Atargatis, an Syrian mother goddess of fertility and the moon

● Cleopatra, a ruler of Egypt famed for her influence on Roman politics

● Queen Elizabeth I, England’s second female monarch when the country asserted itself as a major power in politics, commerce and the arts in the 16th century

● Gabriel, an angel in the Abrahamic religions believed by many to be able to take on any physical form

● Helen of Troy, the Greek beauty seen as the cause of the Trojan war

● Joan of Arc, a sainted heroine of France, revered as a holy person for her faithfulness and bravery in battle, burned at the stake by the church

● Judith The Slayer, a courageous biblical widow who used her charm to save her people from an Assyrian general

● Lady Godiva, a bold noblewoman from the Medieval period who fought for justice for everyday people

● Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Mesoamerican Catholic title of Mary, who appeared to the Indigenous man Juan Diego and imprinted herself on his cloak as proof of her visitation

● Mary Magdalene, “Magdalene” means tower, as she is an early tower of the Christian faith, cited in the four canonical gospels as a follower and companion of Jesus Christ, a witness to his crucifixion and resurrection

● The Virgin Mary, a young Jewish virgin from Nazareth, chosen by God to conceive Jesus through the Holy Spirit

● La Madonna, Italian for “Lady, Virgin Mary,” a central figure of Christianity, celebrated as the “Virgin Queen” in processions of Semana Santa, throughout Spain and Latin America

● Hua Mulan, the famed warrior of Chinese folklore who disguised herself as a man to fight in battle

● Sacagawea, a Shoshone interpreter and guide of the expedition to discover routes through pre-colonial America, journaled by Lewis and Clark

● Queen of Sheba, an Ethiopian queen known for her wit, power, and wealth, her romance with King Solomon documented in the Kebra Nagast

ANTI-ICON: APOKALYPSIS was originally commissioned by Public Art Fund in 2021. The series was last on view in three separate parts across New York, San Francisco, and London galleries in 2023.

Programming

● July 11 at 6pm: ANTI-ICON: APOKALYPSIS Opening Celebration at The Polygon Gallery. All are welcome. RSVP here.

● Additional programming in September will be announced at thepolygon.ca

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Generously supported by The Houssian Foundation

Press kit and photos
https://bit.ly/Anti-Icon2024

Press contact
Ines Min
604 440 0791
ines@inesmin.com

Martine Gutierrez, Elizabeth from ANTI-ICON APOCALYPSIS (detail), 2021. Tia Collection, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA