Video and performance artist Tina Girouard was a trailblazer of the SoHo art scene in the ‘60s and ‘70s, with 1970 marking one of her most historic performances, Sound Loop. In honor of Girouard’s second solo exhibition at the Anat Ebgi gallery in New York City titled I Want You to Have a Good Time, Sound Loop will be restaged as the centerpiece of the artist’s collected works. Girouard’s trademark use of layering and seriality as an approach to world building is on full display throughout the exhibition. 

The performance of Sound Loop features a single performer speaking into a microphone to record sequences of words on a tape loop, eventually re-recording different phrases on top of previous takes. The result is a density of aural space, where individual speech tracks become indistinguishable. Drawings like "Live Body Beat" (1974) surrounding the demonstration depict the “score” for Girouard’s earlier performances of Sound Loop. The artist's eccentric outlines exhibit how she would often leave the interpretations of a piece up to the audience to dissect. 

I Want You to Have a Good Time aptly embodies Girouard’s playful spirit, urging viewers to step away from the self-serious conceptualism of the 70s art scene — a gaiety she maintained until her passing in 2020. Girouard’s exhibition history extends decades, including a mid-career retrospective mounted at the Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City in addition to events like the 1980 Venice Biennale and the 1977 Paris Biennale. Her work was displayed at museums worldwide, like the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and Palais des Beaux-Arts Brussels. 

In 2019, the Anat Ebgi gallery collaborated with The Kitchen and additional curators to restage another of Girouard’s historic performances, Pinwheel (1977). This historic presentation was followed by A Place That Has No Name: Early Works, the artist's first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, also held at Anat Ebgi in 2020. This marked the final showcase of Girouard’s work before her passing.

Nevertheless, Girouard’s vigor and creativity lives on in I Want You to Have a Good Time. The exhibition will be at the Anat Ebgi gallery in New York City until late October.