biography
TERESA HUBBARD (Irish/ American/ Swiss, born in Dublin, Ireland 1965) and ALEXANDER BIRCHLER (Swiss, born in Baden, Switzerland 1962) have been collaborating as an artist team since 1990. Their work, primarily grounded in time-based media, aims to inspire sensorial interactions and explore connections between social life, history and memory. Hubbard / Birchler often seek engagement with adjacent fields of study that have more conventionally been considered the domain of the anthropologist, archeologist or historian. They represented Switzerland in the Swiss Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennial, presenting Flora in the exhibition “Women of Venice,” curated by Philipp Kaiser.
Their work is held in numerous permanent collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; Goetz Collection Munich; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.; Kunsthaus Zurich; Kunstmuseum Basel; Los Angeles County Museum of Art LACMA; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles MOCA; National Museum of Art Osaka and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich.
Hubbard / Birchler have presented their work in venues including the 48th and 57th Venice Biennial; Giacometti Institute Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Kunsthaus Graz; Mori Museum Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Reina Sofia Museum Madrid; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Tate Museum Liverpool and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Their exhibitions have been reviewed in the New York Times, ArtForum, Art in America, Frieze, Parkett, and November. It has also been featured on the PBS series, Art 21 – Art in the 21st Century, an educational archive, resource and history of contemporary art that is broadcast in over 50 countries.
Hubbard grew up in Australia and later attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, as well as the graduate sculpture program at Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut. Birchler grew up in Switzerland and studied at the Academy of Art and Design Basel and the University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland. They began collaborating as artists-in-residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and later completed graduate degrees at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada.
Hubbard and Birchler are Professors at the University of Texas at Austin, where they lead the Photography & Media Program in the Department of Art and Art History. In 2017, they were each awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in Halifax, Canada, in recognition of their outstanding achievements to art and culture.
Hubbard / Birchler are represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles and Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin.