The epic feeling that permeates the work of Pierre Huyghe (b. 1962) invites one to make grandiose statements about his reputation. He is clearly one of the most important artists of his generation, and perhaps the most popular. I did not know anyone who did not pay tribute to his “Liminal” exhibition held at Punta della Dogana two years ago in Venice. Perhaps this was because it could be enjoyed by anyone, in any state of mind. She stumbled into the darkness after a boozy poolside lunch at the Cipriani Hotel. It took a while for my eyes to adjust, but upon entering I was struck by a gold-colored sci-fi mask that appeared to be hanging on the wall. I shot it straight up to examine only to feel a light touch on my chest. In fact, there was a person dressed all in black and wearing this mask, and I was very close to her. From the mask appeared a distorted reproach in a non-language that looked like an aggressive robot star wars.
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“Pierre Huyghe“ |
This was it language (2024) and featured “Pierre Huyghe” in the artist’s recently opened show at the Fondation Beyeler. His first solo exhibition at a Swiss museum, it comes as a successor to “Liminal”, with new additions such as the eponymous artificial respirator. Apnea Which sets the tone for the entire building, a grumbling robot worm and an AI-generated portal, all interconnected between the Venetian veterans. Curated by Mona Makwar, curator-general at Beyeler, and Anne Stinney, who organized the Venice exhibition, with one unobtrusive Huey: Max Ernst The witch (1941), on loan from the Princeton University Art Museum.
Magic seems to be a necessary ingredient in his surrealist practice. the language The masks are made of gold resin, and the helmets worn on the face contain sensors, speakers and LEDs, but their experience is mysterious and transcendent. They are influenced by “subtle signals, some of which are beyond the range of human perception,” according to Beller. The Venice Catalog claimed that over time the masks would form a “community,” a “disembodied entity,” and speak “an unprecedented form of language.” A more educated artist might say this piece is about how social media is the new Tower of Babel, but to be around them is to regard them as entities more advanced than ourselves.
Evolution is a concern in Human mask (2014), which I recently saw at the New Museum. In this story a macaque dresses up as a schoolgirl and a Noh-style mask as she explores an abandoned diner in a post-apocalyptic setting. When I first encountered this in Venice I found myself wondering how he managed to find realistic ape arms for his child actor. The strange sensation was so strong, the evocation of a Japanese horror film so strong, that my mind couldn’t accept the simpler solution, which was that I was looking at a monkey and not a human.
For more experiments with the strange out there Cambrian explosion 19 (2013), in which a volcanic rock floats in an aquarium. Not only do they feel alive and dead, they feel ancient and futuristic at the same time. At a moment when writers love to praise the importance of a cultural object in our time, Hugh makes art that implies that perhaps our current moment is a little too stupid to handle, except through several layers of material, technology, and irony. I’ll drink to that.
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