PAULINE BOUDRY / RENATE LORENZ, Wig Piece, 2019
60 x 45 cm
edition 10 + 2 AP
signed, numbered
published by the Swiss Pavilion of Biennale di Venezia, Venice
issued on behalf of the Venice Biennale 2019
inv.PBou 000

“By introducing hair in a painting’s visual space, the artists comment here on the tactile, bodily, and even an uncanny aspect of painting. The meeting between a hairpiece as painting creates a composition, an assemblage that is reminiscent of characters in their films like Salome in “Salomania” which gathers in one figure the stories of Alla Nazimova, Wu Tsang, Yvonne Rainer, Oscar Wide or Aida Walker. The hair materiality makes us aware of our sexual bodies as spectators in an exhibition. As a structure that hides and unveils altogether, this curtain of hair refers to role play and to the performative dimension of the construction of identities.”

The exhibitions of this artists duo reflect on the current political situation, that is characterised by its regressive and reactionary forces of closure towards the other and towards difference. Faced with the scale of this recent backlash, the artists, instead of practicing an outright opposition, suggest «backward movements» as a potential tool for producing alternative forms of resistance and action.

extra information

PAULINE BOUDRY and RENATE LORENZ, Untitled (Wig Painting), 2016
50 x 50 cm
artificial hair, aluminum
edition 5 + 2 AP
numbered, signed
published by Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland, € 1.900, April 2019