In this video, artistic duo Nicholas and Sheila Pye install "The Coronation" in a second floor gallery of the Phillips house.

The Coronation, Feb. 17--May 8, 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.

The Pyes have exhibited their work, nationally and internationally, including at The Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France; and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, and The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada. Their work has been screened in numerous film festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival, Canada; the Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland; and Les Rencontres Internationales in Paris, Berlin, and Madrid. Their work will be shown at Curator's Office, Washington, D.C., concurrently with the installation at the Phillips.