A Portrait by Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, a new commission for the Media Wall at Leeum Museum of Art, features eight choreographers, artists, and musicians. Each enters the scene against the backdrop of a giant black faux leather curtain, arriving at a simple chair to perform a portrait. The artists experiment with ways of appearing in front of a camera. Do we see a person performing feelings or a performer's personal feelings? Do we see a person’s gestures or a performer’s movements? Mobilizing lessons from queer underground performances, the portraits’ (in)visibilities undermine the distinction between performing and being, and props and bodies. Glamorous and vulnerable, silent yet unapologetic, the moving portraits show a glimpse of a radical difference that resists description.
Shown on an LED screen with an outstanding presence at the museum’s lobby, the majestic curtain—Curtain Piece (Disobedient) (2023)—not only is a background and a sculptural work from the video but also renders the lobby space into a temporary and conceptual stage. The film draws the audience into a precarious terrain where different modes of being—simply being present on site, engaging in the work, themselves becoming performers—coincide.
