Pierre Huyghe

 

The experience The Host and the Cloud was a real situation which took place in a closed museum (ATP) located at the end of an old theme park. It was conceived for a small group of actors placed under particular conditions, who faced different influences, which in turn altered and metabolized the situation.

 

As this ritual unfolds we watch the formation of ideas and perceive the appearance of thought. Here, the roles and behavior of the actors and museum staff is influenced by the situations and heterogenic narratives they encounter in the museum. 

 

From now on in this tale of the present the subject is no longer the protagonist. The collection of its imaginary characters, their changing configurations, real or fictional, forms the situation, which progressively replaces the subject. 

 

The Host and the Cloud is a tale, a journey in the mind of an absent subject. The actors are the different aspects of this spirit; the live situation, its movement and the fictional characters that appear, the alter ego, the actuality in the mental landscape of this absent subject.

 

Halloween, 31 October 2009: Most of the situations evoked both childhood and the world of the fantastic […] But power and its emanations were also present. […] These performative situations were represented but not always simulated. […] The Halloween tradition of Trick or Treat in which children go round knocking at doors, which goes back to a myth concerning the need to put wandering death to rest was reversed : adults now walked around a museum invaded by ghosts of the present, of history and of myth, a place whose fictitious personnel leant themselves to different levels of representation of life and art. 

 

Valentine’s Day, 14 February 2010: «The same actors played the roles of the museum personnel and the masked figures, all busy spreading the different levels of the fiction around the building. […] Then a very young girl came forward in the hall and spoke about the first time she fell in love […] The stories stopped and the protocol of representation narrowed around amorous behavior. The projection of shadows started up again, the rehearsal became a concert and a rather orgiastic party started in the basement. The dissolution under way in the subterranean passages threw everyone back onto their own inner stage » 

 

Labour Day, (1st May 2010): Huyghe has chosen to conclude his live experiences during Labour Day when traditionally activity is suspended. A day with strong political, social value and historically associated with solidarity, which is combined with fluctuating actuality and a memorial dimension.

 

Two new works will be on show on the ground floor, a mask and an aquarium.

 

Pierre Huyghe was born in Paris in 1962, he studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. He notably received the Hugo Boss Prize in 2002 and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Biennale in 2001 when he represented France. His recent solo shows include for example La Saison des Fêtes, at the Contemporary Museum of Art the Reina Sofia in Madrid and the Palacio de Cristal, Madrid (2010) ; A Time Score, MUSAC-Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, (Espagne) (2007) ; Celebration Park, Tate Modern, London, and at l’Arc, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2006). Pierre Huyghe’s work has been shown at numerous exhibitions though out the world, for example, Yesterday will Be Better – Taking Memory into the Future, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Suisse ; Dreamlands, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010) ; Branded on display, Salt Lake Center, Salt Lake city, UT, The Puppet Show, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA, Il tempo del Postino, Manchester international Festival et Basel Theater, Bâle, (2009), The 6e Sydney Biennale, The same River Twice, Part 1, IMA Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, QLD, theanyspacewhatsoever, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY ; Biennale Art Focus, Jerusalem, Israël, (2008); Ecstasy, In and About Altered States, LA MOCA – Museum Of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA Biennale de Venise (2003), Documenta 11, Kassel (2002).

 

1 Marie Muracciole in « Pierre Huyghe, The Host and the Cloud”, Art press, n° 367, mai 2010, pp 48-50.

2 Op.cit. 

3 Sinziana Ravini in Frog Magazine, n°9, 2010, « Pierre Huyghe, Musée des Arts et Traditions populaires, Paris », par, p.49

4 Eric Troncy in Frog Magazine, n°9, 2010, « Pierre Huyghe, Musée des Arts et Traditions populaires, Paris » p.54