For its first exhibition of 2026, the Mattress Factory is presenting Triple Threat, a dance-themed video installation by the Argentine artist duo Lolo y Lauti.
The installation, now on display at the museum, took three weeks to install. Inside a long rectangular gallery space reminiscent of a dance studio, three synchronized screens play a looping video of dancers performing choreography that moves across the boundaries of each individual screen.
Across the projections, three dancers move silently through sequences inspired by classic Broadway and Hollywood musicals, including Sweet Charity, The Pajama Game, and Promises, Promises. As they dance, the performers interact with one another across the screens, shifting positions and echoing movements in a carefully synchronized choreography.
“It’s kind of a variety show of our own,” Lolo & Lauti said.
The piece was developed in Argentina after the artists visited the museum and saw the space where the installation would live. To transform the room, the duo installed a wall-length dance mirror and a ballet barre, the sculptural aspect of the piece, recreating the atmosphere of a rehearsal studio and extending the theatrical world of the piece into the gallery.
Mattress Factory Staff recently discovered that for a period in the 1980’s, there was a dance studio in the Mattress Factory. Maybe this contributes to how natural the feel of the installation is.
“We couldn’t be more happy to have Lolo & Lauti here,” Quinn Kirby, marketing manager at the Mattress Factory said.
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Lolo & Lauti (Buenos Aires, 1980 and 1986) have worked together for more than a decade, creating projects across performance, video, sculpture, installation and photography. Their work has appeared in formats ranging from museum exhibitions to opera, social media and virtual reality.
“We are performance artists first and foremost,” the artists said.
Theater and performance have long been central to the duo’s work. The pair first began collaborating in 2010 and have continued working together ever since.
“Working as a duo, you have to find those shared obsessions and indulgences,” Lolo said.
“No self-indulgences,” Lauti added.
Growing up queer in Argentina, the artists say theater and dance became important sources of inspiration.
“Growing up as queer kids, we didn’t have the positive representation queer kids have now,” Lolo said. “Unapologetic queer people opening up and being themselves was so inspiring to us.”
Some of their earliest influences came from dance shows on television in the 1980s and musical theater productions like A Chorus Line, Promises, Promises and Sweet Charity.
More recently, the duo has increasingly worked with dancers as collaborators, finding the medium particularly energizing for their practice.
“A lot of times it means blending styles together,” the duo said.
That collaborative approach extends to their own partnership. After more than 16 years working together, they say the process continues to evolve through shared interests and experimentation.
Despite its theatrical influences, Triple Threat is visually spare. The installation leaves much of the room open, allowing viewers’ experiences and interpretations to fill the space.
The artists say they have learned to work with very little — a method that emphasizes possibility rather than spectacle.Triple Threat is now on view at the Mattress Factory.