28/01/2013

Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz : Toxic Play in Two Acts

Curated by Electra, which is 'a London based contemporary art organisation which curates, commissions and produces projects by artists working across sound, moving image, performance and the visual arts' probably best known for producing Her Noise Archive and Documentary, and bringing Her Noise to Tate Modern in 2012.

Here is an excerpt of heir statement on the show Toxic Play In Tow Acts, which I strongly recommend:
'Toxic, 2012, is a new work drawing on the artists' ongoing interest in the Theatre of the Ridiculous - performances by Jack Smith, with scripts and films by Ronald Tavel, in the late 1960s in New York - which formulated a mocking and outrageous queer critique of capitalism and the normalisation of bodies. The installation presents performances by Ginger Brooks Takahashi and Werner Hirsch, which explore ideas of both the toxic, and of toxicity - substances and people that threaten and destabilise conventional notions of purity and stability. Ultimately turning the lens on itself, Toxic interrogates the filmic apparatus as a medium of toxic substances and effects. The film installation is accompanied by local archival research from Paris and London that charts moments of representational ambiguity in the early history of police photography.'

Salomania, 2009

There will be a screening on the 1 February at Tate Tanks, art of another Electra's production: Charming for the Revolution: A Congress for Gender Talents and Wildness
and on the 20 February at the South London Gallery: Reflections Without Sun

in the meantime check out Pauline and Renate's website.