L’Unité – Gerard & Kelly (Studio Residency 2020)
Continuing their series of works created in emblematic sites of modernist architecture in the United States and later in Paris, the American artists pursue their engagement with iconic buildings designed by Le Corbusier.
Gerard & Kelly initiate a new chapter of Modern Living within the polychromatic surfaces and raw concrete of Le Corbusier’s masterpiece, the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille (better known as the Cité Radieuse), completed in 1952. With L’Unité, the artists move away from domestic space to address questions of social housing and the public sphere, exploring the pleasures and tensions of living together. Le Corbusier’s principles of modular construction and cellular structures become the basis for a choreography of mathematical precision and unexpected sensuality. The piece juxtaposes concrete surfaces with the skin of bodies—an utopian fantasy infused with historical realities linked to class relations, gender, sexuality, and race.
In L’Unité, Gerard & Kelly pose both a spatial and social question: “How do we live with difference, with the radical otherness of others, and what kinds of architecture can house these social relations?” The work brings together professional dancers, students, and self-taught performers recruited on site.
Influenced by minimalist dance, institutional critique, and queer theory, Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly develop a practice at the intersection of dance and contemporary art, incorporating writing, video, and sculpture. In 2014, Gerard & Kelly received the Jury Prize at the New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies). Their work has been supported by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès (New Settings program), Art Matters, the National Dance Project, FUSED (French-US Exchange in Dance), and the Graham Foundation. They have held residencies at the Cité internationale des arts (Paris), the CND (Pantin), and the New Museum (New York). Their work is included in the collections of LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), and the Guggenheim Museum (New York).
