Claire Pentecost

Courtesy of Higher Pictures.

Claire Pentecost has a research background in agriculture, food systems, bioengineering, and the history of science. Part of her series Linnaeus After Dark, Relunctant Shamanism evokes the murky ambiguity of interior life, toying with the boundary between natural and artificial. Just as the 18th-century Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus drew borders between species and divvied up Homo sapiens according to “race,” similarly human-made borders and rigid conceptions of biology police gender and sexuality—overlooking the diverse relations between human beings. Pentecost takes a position that these all are constructed impositions. By cutting out the gray areas of biology, and making distinctions between one thing and another, human beings have imposed a logic and order that does not capture a complete understanding of what’s real. Classification fails us by erasing the intermediary. 

Claire Pentecost has exhibited nationally and internationally, at documenta 13, Kassel, Germany; 13th Istanbul Biennial; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Land Art Mongolia 3rd Biennial; Corcoran Museum, Washington, DC; and many other venues.