Gerard & Kelly

Gerard & Kelly, American artists based in Paris since 2018, have been developing a practice at the intersection of film, performance, and installation for over twenty years. Their work explores the connections between memory and architecture, sexuality and history. As fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program, they are graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Solo exhibitions and performances have recently been presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Fondation Maeght, the Centre Pompidou, and the Carré d’Art – Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes. Their works are included in major international collections.

Gerard & Kelly are dedicating their residency to “Saints at a Disco”, a project blending film, installation, and performance that explores the nightclub as a postmodern sanctuary. Filmed against the backdrop of visionary architecture along Italy’s Adriatic coast, their new film unfolds as a spiritual allegory that brings together disco culture, Byzantine iconography, and queer spirituality. At Villa Medici, their research will focus on medieval mosaics, devotional architecture, and the radical design of Italian nightclubs, in order to support the final editing of the film and the preparation of future exhibitions.