Pierre Huyghe
Celebration Park
February 2nd-26th, 2006 : Prologue
March 10th-April 23rd, 2006 : Exhibition
Musée dArt moderne de la Ville de Paris / ARC
11, avenue du Président Wilson 75116 Paris
Tél : 01 53 67 40 00
On the occasion of the museums reopening, Pierre Huyghe, flagship artist of his generation, is invited to realize his first grand monographic show in France.
The exhibition Celebration Park, which foreshadows a park that the artist anticipates to ultimately construct, is inspired by the idea of the universal exhibition which permits the emergence of events of various intensities.
Celebration Park unfolds in two parts:
– the Prologue from February 2nd to 26th,
– the main Exhibition, from March 10th to April 23rd.
The Prologue, foreshadowing the exhibition to follow, introduces the general rules of its game. In the « aquarium », a pile of books 1,000 copies of a non-linear diary, resembling a golden treasure evokes the principles of the Association des Temps Libérés (Association of Freed Time)* : the extending of the duration of the exhibition into months, days, minutes and seconds. This book renders perceptible each and everyones subjective temporalities.
Passing through a banging door the visitor is invited along a path punctuated by a succession of illuminated, juristic assertions, urban signs in neon, like so many denials stemming from the rights of the author: hence « Je ne possède pas le musée dart moderne, ni létoile noire ». Liberated thus from copyright, the author permits himself the liberal usage of their contents, developing notions of revival, displacement and the extension of narrative, an interest he shares with other artists of his generation.
The journey terminates with an encounter with the artist, as a marionette, behind closed doors, in the manner of an « Etant donné ». Through this poetic gesture, the personage evokes his relationship to his hosting space.
In a second area, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda have been invited, during the Prologue. Very often deriving from concealed actions founded upon mystification or even a veritable lie, their work infers the idea of « manipulation ».
From March 10th, the entire Exhibition will be deployed. Pierre Huyghe will then revolutionize the initial plan through a sweeping movement, or scenario independently piloted by a program.
The doors are animated, inspired by the evolution of two dancers whose choreographed movements have been transcribed using the technique of 3D animation.
The visitor’s path will be punctuated by several films: - This is not a time for dreaming was executed from a musical puppet show created for the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, constructed in 1965 by Le Corbusier. Pierre Huyghe directs two parallel stories: Le Corbusier at the moment of the buildings conception, and himself faced with the realization of this project, together developing the theme of the difficult process of creating a work which hinges on the eager expectations of its commissioners.
– In another gallery, A Journey that wasnt will be presented in a pavilion contrived by the artist in close collaboration with François Roche, proposing to traverse this structure in creating yet “another” formula of projection. The film is based on dual events :
In February 2005, Pierre Huyghe departed for Antarctica on the largest polar sailing vessel in existence, in search of an unknown island on the basis of a simple rumor describing the whereabouts of an extraordinary creature. This exploratory voyage (in which Jay Chung &
Q Takeki Maeda took part) in an unmapped zone was then transformed into a musical comedy performed on the ice skating rink of New Yorks Central Park.
Finally, for One Year Celebration, the artist asked architects, musicians and choreographers to envision the celebration of non-holiday days, creating a calendar composed of posters, to be employed as a parade, thus using a collective exhibition to propose an alternative organization of time.
Curators : Laurence Bossé, Julia Garimorth et Hans Ulrich Obrist.
With thanks to the dancers from the Théâtre du Châtelet
An exhibition organized by the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris/ARC
in association with Tate Modern, London
The exhibition of Pierre Huyghe at Tate Modern will be presented from July 5th to September 17th, 2006.
The concert of Arto Lindsay during the opening the 1st of February will benefits from the support of Agnés B.
« I do not possess the Museum of Modern Art, nor the death star ».
*Association créée par Pierre Huyghe lors de lexposition Moral maze en 1995. Elle réunit tous les artistes de lexposition : Angela Bulloch, Maurizio Cattelan, Liam Gillick, Carsten Höller, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Douglas Gordon, Jorge Prado, Philippe Parreno, Rirkrit Tiravanija et Xavier Veilhan.
« Association des Temps Libérés. Objet : pour le développement des temps improductifs, pour une réflexion sur les temps libres, et lélaboration dune société sans travail. Pour faire connaître ses idées, lassociation organisera différentes réunions publiques, conférences, parutions, fêtes. » Déclaration parue au Journal Officiel du 5 juillet 1995.
