Bright hours
(2023)
from the Modern living series 2016–
Medium
colour digital video, sound
Measurements
25 min
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased NGV Foundation, 2024
© ADAGP Paris, 2023
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
Gerard & Kelly’s Bright hours explores and speculates on the relationship between the famed Swiss-French architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887–1965), known as Le Corbusier, and American dancer Josephine Baker (1906–75). It is the latest work in their series Modern Living, 2016, which places bodies, relationships and architecture into dialogue. In Bright hours Baker, depicted by St Louis–born dancer Emara Neymour-Jackson and Le Corbusier played by French actress Jeanne Balibar, appear in relation to the architect’s iconic modernist apartment block La Cité Radieuse in Marseille. With a soundtrack composed and performed by American singer Moses Sumney, Bright hours uses choreography to explore gender, race, sexuality and modernism’s real and imagined legacy.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Paris, France
Edition
ed. 2/3
Accession Number
2024.143
Department
Contemporary Art