Laine Rettmer is an artist and director working across photography, film, moving image, installation, opera, and live performance. Based in Brooklyn and Providence, their work examines how images shape social behavior, queer identity and desire, memory, and historical imagination. Performance is one of the primary methods through which Rettmer makes images. Across their practice, directing, staging, and photography operate as interconnected forms of image-making. Repetition, rehearsal, citation, and blocking function as both methods and subjects.
Rettmer's forthcoming solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, curated by Daisy Alejandre, opens in November 2027 and runs through April 2028. Their work has also been presented at the Brooklyn Museum, Manifesta 11, MoMA Public, the MIT Museum, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, and NADA New York.
As a director, Rettmer has worked with Beth Morrison Projects, Los Angeles Opera, New York City Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Omaha, On Site Opera, and White Snake Opera, among others. Adoration, presented by Beth Morrison Projects at the Prototype Festival and by Los Angeles Opera at REDCAT, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. Rettmer's feature film La Bohème received a theatrical release through Toho Cinemas in Japan. Their feature film Oblivion received Best Musical Film at the Cannes World Film Festival and Best Experimental Feature at the Touchstone Independent Film Festival.
From 2014 through 2017, Rettmer served as founding and resident stage director of LoftOpera, helping shape the company's artistic identity through productions including The Barber of Seville, La Bohème, The Rape of Lucretia, and Macbeth. Their final production with the company, Macbeth, received WQXR Operavore Freddie Awards for Best New Production and Best Director. The New York Times named The Barber of Seville one of the top classical music productions of 2014, while the Observer included La Bohème among its best operas of the decade. From 2019 to 2025, Rettmer also served on the Artistic Advisory Board of On Site Opera.
Rettmer's work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the MAP Fund, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Traveling Fellows program. Fellowships and residencies include the Art School Alliance Fellowship at HFBK Hamburg, the Watermill Center, Vermont Studio Center, Skaftfell Center for Visual Art, and the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research.
Rettmer is Associate Professor of Photography and Expanded Media and Graduate Program Director of MFA Photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. Previously, they were a residential scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.