Gerard & Kelly in Conversation with Johanna Burton

Curator and critic Johanna Burton will be in conversation with Gerard & Kelly on the occasion of their exhibition CLOCKWORK. The discussion will focus on the artists’ ongoing project Modern Living, which explores queer intimacy and domestic space within legacies of modernist architecture. CLOCKWORK will be on view following the conversation.

Johanna Burton is Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Engagement at the New Museum in New York and the series editor for the Museum’s Critical Anthologies in Art and Culture series. An art historian, a critic, and a curator, she has contributed articles and reviews to numerous journals—including Artforum, Art Journal, October, and Texte zur Kunst—as well as to exhibition catalogs for institutions throughout the world. Burton has curated or co-curated exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Bard College, the Hammer Museum, and the New Museum to name a few. Prior to her work at the New Museum, Burton was director of the graduate program at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and associate director and senior faculty member at the Whitney Independent Study Program.​

Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly have collaborated as Gerard & Kelly since 2003. Their installations and performances use choreography, video, and sculpture to address questions of sexuality, memory, and the formation of queer consciousness. Recent exhibitions and performances of their work have been presented by the Guggenheim Museum, New Museum, and The Kitchen (New York); Festival d’Automne, Palais de Tokyo, and Centre Pompidou (Paris); Chicago Architecture Biennial; and the Made in LA Biennial at the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles).

Gerard & Kelly completed the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 2010, and received their MFAs from the University of California, Los Angeles Department of Art in 2013.
Gerard & Kelly are the recipients of a 2014 Juried Award from the New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as the Bessies, and grants from Art Matters, New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, and the Graham Foundation.