Penzance, Cornwall, UK
Alexandra Zierle & Paul Carter
10/19/11 4:47 PM
Though their heads may be covered in dozens of fortune cookies or shrouded in slices of soft white bread, performance duo Alexandra Zierle and Paul Carter move with the weight of gravitas. The approachable ridiculousness of their costumes deftly belies a romantic, even melodramatic undertone which links their collaboration to that of the doomed lovers in Takeshi Kitano’s film “Dolls.” You could think of them as Marina and Ulay with a contemporary sense of theatricality and props, but it might be more exquisite to forget that historical precedent entirely and concentrate instead on Zierle and Carter’s ability to create a surrealistic situation out of nothing more than a bunch of red balloons.
—Lori Waxman