Martine Gutierrez: Half-Breed

Martine Gutierrez’s “Half-Breed” is on view at San Francisco’s Fraenkel Gallery through January 29. Titled for the 1973 album by Cher, the presentation features photographs from three of the artist’s series—Plastics, Body En Thrall, and Indigenous Woman—in which Gutierrez acts as both the producer and muse. Viewers will find themselves questioning mainstream beauty standards in the Plastics images, where the artist has tightly bound her face in clear, filmy plastic wrap. Indigenous Woman (first seen at the 2019 Venice Biennale) references the artist’s fluid identity through areas of race, class, gender, and sexuality with imagery reminiscent of fashion editorials. And born from the Indigenous Woman works, Gutierrez’s Body En Thrall series depicts the artist taking on a new persona while posing in provocative scenarios with mannequins.