Camille Henrot: The Pale Fox
20 June–17 August 2014
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Nyhavn 2
1051 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Camille Henrot: The Pale Fox
Kunsthal Charlottenborg is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Denmark by French New York-based artist Camille Henrot. The exhibition presents an ambitious new commission, the extensive installation The Pale Fox, alongside Grosse Fatigue (2013)—the film Henrot presented at the 55th Venice Biennale, 2013, for which she was awarded the Silver Lion for most promising young artist. The two works spring from Henrot’s interest in how collections are created and how knowledge is arranged and systematised. Taking an approach that draws on anthropology and social archaeology, she explores a universal urge to collect and preserve in order to create, shape, and understand the world around us. Furthermore, these scientific methods reflect upon the very nature of the artist’s own creative process.
Unfolding like a frieze across two galleries, a polymorphous aluminium shelf provides a structure wherein the four points of the compass are aligned with stages in an individual life cycle, the evolution of technology, philosophical principles of Leibniz, the sun’s trajectory and the four Classical elements: fire, water, earth and air. This highly personalised aggregation of distinct systems of thought is presented through an intense accumulation of objects and images encountered within a highly constructed, meditative environment. Henrot’s own drawings, photographs and sculptures are exhibited alongside digital slide shows and objects purchased online via eBay. These are further supplemented by a selection of rare objects from the National Museum of Denmark. Like a subtle network of symbols and mythological references the objects on display combine to suggest a progressive, possibly circular narrative about the beginning, evolution, and end of all things.
The title of Henrot’s exhibition is taken from an anthropological study of the West African Dogon people published by Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen in 1965. Dogon mythology is thought to incorporate the belief systems of several different cultures, as well as astronomical, mathematical and philosophical systems of thought. Within this meta-narrative, the character of the Pale Fox represents disorder and chaos but also creation, bringing about the formation of the sun.
Exploring varying scales and chronologies, from the history of the universe to the universe of the artist’s studio, the exhibition becomes a model for information storage and retrieval—rolled and stacked images become objects, and objects from museum collections are substituted with eBay purchases and scrolling slideshows on digital picture frames. Henrot relates the construction of knowledge to haptic and sensual experience, reflecting our common desire, evidenced in spheres from the artistic to the domestic, to create model worlds of fantasy and symbolism as a means of inhabiting reality.
Camille Henrot (b. 1978) lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include the New Museum, New York (2014); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2014); the New Orleans Museum of Art (2013); Slought Foundation, Philadelphia (2013); kamel mennour, Paris (2012) and Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris (2010). Group exhibitions include Companionable Silences, Nouvelle Vague, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013); A Disagreeable Object, SculptureCenter, New York (2012); and Elles, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010). Henrot was nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2010 and received the Silver Lion at the 55th Venice Biennale, 2013. She is shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize 2014.
The Pale Fox is commissioned and produced in partnership with Chisenhale Gallery, London; Bétonsalon – Centre d’art et de recherche, Paris; and Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster. Camille Henrot’s exhibition is supported by Ambassade de France à Copenhague, Institut Français, The Danish Arts Foundation, The National Museum of Denmark –Modern History and World Cultures.
With thanks to kamel mennour, Paris and Johann König, Berlin.
Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Kunsthal Charlottenborg is one of the largest and most beautiful spaces for contemporary art in Europe, presenting an ambitious programme of exhibitions and events including talks, performances, concerts and screenings. This spread of activities is designed to speak to a wide range of audiences in Copenhagen and beyond, making Charlottenborg one of the main crossroads for contemporary art in Denmark.
