From Philip Johnson’s Glass House to Mies van der Rohe’s Edith Farnsworth House, many iconic modernist homes have now become what American artists Gerard & Kelly call “ruins.” Their transgressive and often utopic ideals either forgotten or intentionally ignored, these sites often lie empty or, transformed into museums, welcome visitors into their fossilized interiors. In Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly’s ongoing film and performance project Modern Living, the Paris-based duo revivifies these structures through a lush, humorous and energetic fusion of movement, words and music.¹ 

Their most recent film, Bright Hours, turns Cité Radieuse, Le Corbusier’s experimental Marseille housing complex, into the transatlantic ocean liner on which he and performer Josephine Baker had a ro...