Andrea Fraser

(b. 1965) 

Since the 1980s, Andrea Fraser’s manipulations of museum language—including tongue-in-cheek subversions of the forms of the gallery talk, wall label, and press release—have made her a core practitioner of Institutional Critique, a term she claims to have coined. Her art considers how museums and galleries shape the interpretation and economic value of artworks. Her performances, videos, and writing probe the increasing financialization of the art world and the feedback loops of money and taste that render it increasingly privatized. One of her most recent projects, 2016 in Museums, Money, and Politics, tracks the art market’s messy entanglements with electoral politics, especially in the years following the 2008 Recession.