Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz with Ginger Brooks Takahashi

Silent

Wednesday, May 16, 7–8pm

Location

On the High Line at 14th St.

Free admission
Open to all ages

Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz present an evening exploring silence and its varied manifestations, related to Boudry / Lorenz’s film Silent (2016), presented on High Line Channels from March 22–May 23, 2018. For the event, the artists have invited artist Ginger Brooks Takahashi to present a new performance that examines individuals’ impetus for breaking their own silences, specifically responding to John Cage’s iconic 4’33”, an integral element of Boudry / Lorenz’s film. Following Brooks Takahashi’s performance, Boudry / Lorenz will present a performative lecture drawing on the many texts that served as inspiration for the film.

Silent is an exhibition in video format featuring the work of Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, artists who have been working together in Berlin since 2007. Their videos focus on historical moments, usually with an inclination toward unrepresented lives and communities. They often frame their 16mm films through performance, as a way to heighten the embodiment of characters who are often brought together across different historical moments, facts, and fictions.

For the High Line, Boudry and Lorenz present Silent, a work starring the musician Aérea Negrot performing John Cage’s score 4’33” (1952). The video begins with Negrot standing in front of a bank of microphones as if to address a press conference, in the center of Oranienplatz in Berlin, where a refugee protest camp existed from 2012-2014. Negrot holds her silence for the length of Cage’s piece, then finishes with a song. The short film explores how silence is both an oppressive experience and an act of strong resistance, as well as how these two aspects of silence are connected.

Image: Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Silent, 2016 (still). Courtesy of the artists and Marcelle Alix

Artist bio

Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz have been working together in Berlin since 2007. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented at organizations including Participant, Inc., New York (2017); Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas (2017); La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, Montreal, Canada (2016); Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, England (2015); and Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria (2015). Notable group exhibitions and screenings include Nuit Blanche, Paris, France (2017); Reframing Worlds, NGBK, Berlin, Germany (2017); Trigger: Gender as Tool as Weapon, New Museum, New York (2017); and Sound Fields, Beirut Art Center (BAC), Beirut, Lebanon (2016). Their work has been presented in major international exhibitions including the Biennale of Moving Image, Centre d´art / Mamco, Geneva, Switzerland (2016); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea (2016); 5th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece (2015); CAFAM Biennial, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China (2014); and the Swiss Off-Site Pavillon, 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2011).

Ginger Brooks Takahashi’s collaborative project-based, socially enraged practice is an extension of feminist spaces and queer inquiry, actively building community and nurturing alternative forms of information distribution. She is co-founder of queer and feminist journal LTTR; projet MOBILIVRE BOOKMOBILE project; the touring musical act MEN; and General Sisters, a neighborhood grocery store. She has presented work at the Jewish Museum, New York, New York (2016); Tensta Konsthall, Tensta, Sweden (2015); Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York (2013); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico (2010); New Museum, New York, New York (2009); and Serpentine Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2008). She received her BA from Oberlin College and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2007.

Support

High Line Art receives major support from Donald R. Mullen, Jr., The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, and Charina Endowment Fund. High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council.

Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Silent, is presented with the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.