Intersections: The Coronation by Nichols and Sheila Pye
(Feb 17–May 22, 2011)
The Coronation is a three-channel video with sound, projected on three 52-inch plasma monitors. Wall-mounted and arranged like a triptych, the work alters the architecture of the gallery and establishes a visual dialogue with Georges Rouault's Tragic Landscape, 1930, from the permanent collection. The Coronation isa pictorial narrative, in which the Pyes, who come from Canada, explore issues of gender and identity. In three separate scenes that unfold simultaneously and evoke panels in an altarpiece, the couple is shown in a series of physical transformations against an Edenic landscape, as they come together and separate.
