In a clip from a 1985 BBC-TV interview, viewable on the BBC’s website, French writer and activist Jean Genet describes a dream he had in which the film crew revolted against the television-interview paradigm wherein a subject (in this case Genet himself) talks in front of a camera while half a dozen people off-camera—various technicians plus the director, interviewer, and interpreter—remain unseen and unheard. “Why don’t they come and push me out?” he goads before concluding his impromptu critique of normative behavior with the self-critical statement: “I am not annoyed with you for being part of the norm, I am annoyed with myself for accepting to come here.” Given that Berlin-based artists Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz share Genet’s passion for exposing and exploring societal norms and margins, it is not surprising to find this interview featured prominently in the artist-duo’s current exhibition, “Journal Notes from Backstage.” Based on their extensive research of various subcultures historically deemed “deviant” by hetero-normative cultures, Boudry and Lorenz have developed a diverse oeuvre of performances, films, photographs, installations, and publications, which feature figures like bearded women, transvestites, sadomasochists, and homosexuals. “Journal Notes from Backstage” showcases two recent works: Toxic (2012), a filmed performance screened in …