Erica Lord at the Hudson River Museum
in "No Bodies: Clothing as Disruptor" curated by Alva Greenberg
September 20, 2024 - January 26, 2025We are pleased to share that Erica Lord is included in the exhibition, "No Bodies: Clothing as Disruptor," at the Hudson River Museum which will be on view from September 20, 2024 - January 26, 2025. The exhibition is curated by Alva Greenberg.
Lord's work in the exhibition, Multiple Myeloma Burden Strap, DNA/RNA Mycroarray Anaysis, Variation #1 is part of the series, The Codes We Carry: Beadwork as DNA Data. For this ongoing series of sculptural objects, Lord combines traditional Indigenous art forms and techniques with DNA analysis to raise awareness of health disparities for Native people. Computer-produced genetic data from diseases affecting Indigenous communities is transformed into loom-woven glass bead burden straps an act of data sovereignty.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The altered and uninhabited clothing in No Bodies disrupts our automatic responses by challenging perceptions of materiality, cultural identity, relationships, political beliefs, and portraiture itself.
Clothing conveys impressions of social background, economic status, and ethnicity. Much like physical features, it serves as a powerful tool for self-expression and understanding others. Our inclination to categorize people based on their attire also shapes our reactions to them. How often do we subconsciously assign meanings to clothing that may not truly represent the wearer?
The altered and uninhabited clothing in No Bodies disrupts our automatic responses by challenging perceptions of materiality, cultural identity, relationships, political beliefs, and portraiture itself. Free from physicality, these works compel us to confront our assumptions, as well as the ever-growing societal tendency to compartmentalize people, behavior, and social media that increasingly rules our thinking. What does it mean to deconstruct a garment by unraveling it, burning it, or transforming it into another material? What does clothing symbolize when there never was, or will be, a body inside?
At the Hudson River Museum, the exhibition is generously sponsored by The Coby Foundation, Ltd. Additional support is provided by The O’Grady Foundation. Exhibitions are made possible by assistance provided by the County of Westchester.
Artists: Reginald Dwayne Betts • John Boone • Marsha Borden • Rachel Breen • Chris Burden • Patrick Carroll • Susan Clinard • Hannah Conradt • E.V. Day • Rose Deler • Lesley Dill • Anindita Dutta • Giannina Dwin • Carlos Estévez • Kathryn Frund • Jonathan Herrera Soto • Jesse Krimes • Robert Kushner • Ruth Lingen • Erica Lord • Whitfield Lovell • Adriana Marmorek • Senga Nengudi • Carol Paik • Sidney Russell • Barbara Ségal • Karen Shaw • Jaune Quick-to-See Smith • Micki Watanabe Spiller • Cindy Tower • Cybèle Young
ABOUT ERICA LORD
Erica Lord (b. 1978) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores concepts and issues that exist within a contemporary Indigenous experience, including how culture and identity operate in a rapidly changing world. Lord draws on her experience of growing up between Alaska and Upper Michigan and her mixed-race cultural identity drawn from Athabaskan, Iñupiat, Finnish, Swedish, Japanese, and English descent. To address a multiple or mixed identity, Lord uses a variety of mediums to construct new, ambiguous, or challenging representations of race and culture. Lord is a an enrolled member of Nenana Native Village.
Lord received her Bachelor of Arts from Carleton College and a Master of Fine Arts at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Lord has exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe; the Musée du Quai Branley, Paris; the National Gallery of Canada, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Lord lives in Santa Fe, NM, where she continues her art practice and teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts.