Dull and Bathos

Galerie Francesca Pia is pleased to present Dull and Bathos, an exhibition of new work by Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda.

Jay Chung, (b. 1976 Wisconsin, USA) and Q Takeki Maeda (b. 1977 Nagoya, Japan) live and work in Berlin and have collaborated for over ten years, having met at the Frankfurt Städelschule in 2002. Their work explores questions of critique and reference, artistic influence and self-reflexivity. Dull and Bathos consists of a short film, Untitled, accompanied by a series of Polaroid photographs and Some Made Up Names, a large panel work. To direct Untitled, Chung and Maeda commissioned filmmakers Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn, whose feature films have been featured at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and screened at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Their films mix products of popular culture such as teen dramas with the refined sensibilities of avant-garde filmmaking. The protagonists of their latest feature, L for Leisure, are American graduate students who spend the duration of the film lounging and relaxing in various locations around the world. Sheltered from any hardship outside of their own anxieties, they are blissfully unaware of their own privilege.