Past and future materialized publicly. "Glass is my skin" by Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz
16/10/2022.
MNCARS [MAD] Spain
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Pauline Boudry (Switzerland, 1972) and Renate Lorenz (Germany, 1963) are the authors of "Glass is my skin" the last intervention presented by the Reina Sofía Museum in the Palacio de Cristal of Parque del Retiro.
The couple worked together since 2007 in Berlin, and their work has been exhibited at the Museo Reina Sofia for years, a few months ago they became protagonists with their exhibition "Portrait of a movement" at the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo ( CA2M).
The work of Boudry/Lorenz, which is presented at the museum's headquarters in Parque del Retiro, recreates a great set design in which it is sought that the fantasies of the relationships between the past and the future materialize publicly. For its construction, they use a vademecum of ideas and elements habitual in their work: the moving and projected image, the relationship with the space where they perform their intervention, and a stage where the themes with which they usually work are articulated: the review of cultural heritage, gender discourses and especially queer theory.
The couple worked together since 2007 in Berlin, and their work has been exhibited at the Museo Reina Sofia for years, a few months ago they became protagonists with their exhibition "Portrait of a movement" at the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo ( CA2M).
The work of Boudry/Lorenz, which is presented at the museum's headquarters in Parque del Retiro, recreates a great set design in which it is sought that the fantasies of the relationships between the past and the future materialize publicly. For its construction, they use a vademecum of ideas and elements habitual in their work: the moving and projected image, the relationship with the space where they perform their intervention, and a stage where the themes with which they usually work are articulated: the review of cultural heritage, gender discourses and especially queer theory.
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
As in the rest of Boudry / Lorenz's artistic work, with approaches that blur the boundaries between cinema, dance, installation, social sculpture or performance, they question historical narratives, revisiting common scenarios to recover marginalized or ignored readings, creating installations that rediscover and they give visibility to issues and situations that are blurred, forgotten or opaque before the usual prism of the dominant culture.
The proposal gives the building a voice that speaks about its first program and its colonial history relationship, in a song by Aérea Negrot. Inspired by queer clubs, the artist duo also created a set of platforms or stages made out of mirrors.
The Palacio de Cristal, with its transparent walls, was built for the General Exhibition of the Philippine Islands in 1887 with the aim of learning more about the life and culture of the inhabitants of the Philippines, a Spanish colony since the 16th century for more than three hundred years.
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
Inspired by queer clubs, the artist duo also created a set of platforms or stages made out of mirrors. Reflected on the surfaces, the Palace becomes a performer, appearing on stage in different, multiple, and dissipated ways. At certain times the platforms exhale smoke and render the transparent building entirely opaque.
In the installation, the smoke becomes an aesthetic tool for undermining the Palace’s transparency as a regime of visuality. It also connects to the density of the queer club, where individual bodies transform into one collective body while dancing. The platforms or stages don’t wait for us, we cannot enter them, their stairs are up in the air. They seem to be caught in a moment of stillness before continuing to dance, or taking off from the Palace’s floor. On the verge of movement, they become protagonists in this installation as well. The stages turn the Palacio de Cristal itself into a performer. The building enters the stages, slightly distorted, reflected by the mirrors.
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter.
The proposal gives the building a voice that speaks about its first program and its colonial history relationship, in a song by Aérea Negrot. Inspired by queer clubs, the artist duo also created a set of platforms or stages made out of mirrors.
The Palacio de Cristal, with its transparent walls, was built for the General Exhibition of the Philippine Islands in 1887 with the aim of learning more about the life and culture of the inhabitants of the Philippines, a Spanish colony since the 16th century for more than three hundred years.
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter
Inspired by queer clubs, the artist duo also created a set of platforms or stages made out of mirrors. Reflected on the surfaces, the Palace becomes a performer, appearing on stage in different, multiple, and dissipated ways. At certain times the platforms exhale smoke and render the transparent building entirely opaque.
In the installation, the smoke becomes an aesthetic tool for undermining the Palace’s transparency as a regime of visuality. It also connects to the density of the queer club, where individual bodies transform into one collective body while dancing. The platforms or stages don’t wait for us, we cannot enter them, their stairs are up in the air. They seem to be caught in a moment of stillness before continuing to dance, or taking off from the Palace’s floor. On the verge of movement, they become protagonists in this installation as well. The stages turn the Palacio de Cristal itself into a performer. The building enters the stages, slightly distorted, reflected by the mirrors.
View of the exhibition Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Glass is my skin, 2022. Photograph by Annik Wetter.
More information
Artists
Pauline Boudry, Renate Lorenz.
Organized by
Dates
From, 7 October 2022 to 9 April 2023.
Location
Palacio de Cristal, Parque del Retiro. Madrid, Spain.
Pauline Boudry, Renate Lorenz. Boudry / Lorenz
Pauline Boudry (Switzerland, 1972) and Renate Lorenz (Germany, 1963) have been working together in Berlin since 2007. They produce objects and installations that choreograph the tension between visibility and opacity. Their films capture performances in front of the camera, upsetting normative historical narratives and conventions of spectatorship, as figures and actions across time are staged, layered and re-imagined. Their work has been exhibited around the world, at venues such as the MoMA, Palais de Tokyo, NBK Berlin and the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève. In 2019, the duo presented the installation Moving Backwards at the Swiss Pavillion of the 58th Venice Biennale. For IFFR 2021, Boudry and Lorenz, honoured with a Short Profile, created the performance (No) Time.
Filmography
(selection, all co-dir) Scopitone (1991, short), Copy me - I want to travel (2004), Sometimes you fight for the world, sometimes you fight for yourself (2004, short), Normal Work (2007, short), N.O.Body (2008, short), Charming for the Revolution (2009, short), Salomania (2009, short), No Future / No Past (2011, short), Toxic (2012, short), To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation (2013, short), Opaque (2014, short), I Want (2015, short), Silent (2016, short), Telepathic Improvisation (2017, short), The Right To Have Rights (2019, short), Moving Backwards (2019, short), (No) Time (2021, performance).
Filmography
(selection, all co-dir) Scopitone (1991, short), Copy me - I want to travel (2004), Sometimes you fight for the world, sometimes you fight for yourself (2004, short), Normal Work (2007, short), N.O.Body (2008, short), Charming for the Revolution (2009, short), Salomania (2009, short), No Future / No Past (2011, short), Toxic (2012, short), To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation (2013, short), Opaque (2014, short), I Want (2015, short), Silent (2016, short), Telepathic Improvisation (2017, short), The Right To Have Rights (2019, short), Moving Backwards (2019, short), (No) Time (2021, performance).
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