Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz upset normative historical narratives and conventions of spectatorship, as figures and actions across time are staged, layered and re-imagined.
Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz have been working together in Berlin since 2007. They produce installations that choreograph the tension between visibility and opacity. Their films capture performances in front of the camera, often starting with a song, a picture, a film or a score from the near past. They upset normative historical narratives and conventions of spectatorship, as figures and actions across time are staged, layered and re-imagined. Their performers are choreographers, artists and musicians, with whom they are having a long-term conversation about the conditions of performance, the violent history of visibility, the pathologization of bodies, but also about companionship, glamour and resistance.
Recently, they have shown their work at MUAC, Istituto Svizzero, Crac Occitanie, the Philadelphia Art Museum, Nest, the 35th São Paulo Art Biennal, Crystal Palace/Reina Sofia Museum Madrid, Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Whitechapel Gallery London, the Hammer Museum Los Angeles, Centre Pompidou Paris, Seoul Museum of Art, Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, New Museum New York, and Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin. They represented Switzerland int he 58th Venice Biennial.
Their work is found in the collections of Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; GAM/Rivoli, Torino; NGV Museum, Louisiana Museum; Melbourne; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Kadist Foundation; Frac Lorraine; Kunsthaus Zürich; NBK , Berlin; Warsaw Museum; MCBA Lausanne; Frac Toulouse; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Nouveau Musée Monaco; Bundes Sammlung Deutschland; Frac Bretagne; Lodz Museum; CA2M Madrid; and Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.
Their work has been written about by writers and critics including Elisabeth Lebovici, Andre Lepecki, Mason Leaver-Yap, Elisabeth Lebovici, Övül Ö. Durmusoglu, Gregg Bordowitz, Antke Engel, Nana Adusei-Poku, Mathias Danbolt, Ellen Feiss or Laura Guy. Their most recent catalogue is "Todo lo que ella dijo - All the Things She Said", published by MUAC-Unam Mexico City. "Stages" (2022) was published by Spector Books, "Moving Backwards" (2019) was published by Skira, "Telepathic Improvisation" (2018) was published by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, "I Want" was published by Sternberg Press (2016), and "Aftershow" was published by Sternberg Press (2014).