GERMAINE

Germaine: a collaboration between artist Claudia Doring-Baez and visual and performance artist MUR. Throughout 2020 the two artists jointly produced paintings, videos, and ephemera that revive the pioneering legacy of Germaine Krull as photographer, feminist, and social trailblazer.

As a member of the first generation of modernist female photographers, Krull’s work and life both serve as inspiration and as guide for women who have rejected patriarchal structures. It is within this relationship that Doring-Baez first produced paintings like "Der Akt: Zwanzig" and "Les Amies," works that channel the transgressive potential of Krull’s works and translate them for the present. In resurrecting these images in expressive color – as often abstracted or dripping with expressive and bold brush strokes -- Doring-Baez produces works that consider how far we have truly come, and to what extent the historical past is ever distant. In doing so, she recommits to the social charge of Krull’s life and work.

Out of these paintings, MUR and Doring-Baez began collaborating on a larger multimedia project. In a series of music videos, each song is written and performed as an interpretation of one of the women who modeled for Germaine Krull’s photographs. In between quick cuts of Doring-Baez’s works on canvas, MUR stands as the model wearing a leotard painted by Doring-Baez. In the opening of the first song, MUR sings, “They kicked us out cause we don’t got clout and we’ve got a lot to say / Now we are here we are straight and queer getting photographed today / Neither man or woman!” This work, which functioned as MUR’s coming out as non-binary on Instagram, embodies the subversive humor and direct confrontation that is at the core of this collaborative practice. Paintings on leotard, video disseminated through the internet, and memetic content act as the channels through which MUR and Doring-Baez carry forward a rejection of social norms.

Within the gallery, these different strains of their practice will be presented in parallel: paintings on canvas, videos on monitors, and painted leotards will hang as objects. A trio led by MUR will perform original music, as well as live painting by Doring-Baez, activating the installation during the run of the exhibit. In this revival of images of the past, Doring-Baez and MUR celebrate the space in society that Krull pioneered for artists to speak, live, and make work freely, while echoing that call to be more inclusive than ever.

-Matt Nasser

GERMAINE - the paintings - Claudia Doring Baez

GERMAINE - the video

THE MAKING OF GERMAINE

THE LEOTARDS

BEHIND THE SCENES