Pierre Huyghe: Liminal

Leeum Museum of Art proudly presents Liminal, the first solo exhibition in Asia by the globally renowned artist Pierre Huyghe, who has continuously explored new worlds by breaking away from fixed forms of contemporary art and from its exhibition models. Liminal highlights Pierre Huyghe’s artistic exploration over the past decade, including works co-commissioned with Punta della Dogana of the Pinault Collection.

Presenting a total of 12 works, including new pieces such as Liminal (2024–ongoing), Camata (2024–ongoing), and Idiom (2024-ongoing), as well as the artist’s renown works Human Mask (2014), Offspring (2018), and the aquarium series, the exhibition also introduces other works generated through collaboration between humans and machines, such as UUmwelt-Annlee (2016–25) and Cancer Variator (2016).

The title of the exhibition, Liminal, refers to a “transitory state, from which something unthought-of can emerge.” The exhibition Liminal is conceived from questions such as: How can we intend to experience the impossible or the unimaginable? How does an exhibition constitute new subjectivities? Erasing the boundaries between reality and fiction, the exhibition proposes a new realm where humans and non-humans coexist, with different times and spaces overlapping or separating unpredictably, resulting in a constant evolution and learning.

For Pierre Huyghe, the exhibition Liminal is inhabited by multiple voices, a chorus of hybrid creatures constantly changing, appearing and disappearing over the course of the exhibition. Here, entities or selves circulate dynamically, forming a complex milieu. In the work, Liminal, which shares its title with the exhibition, a hollow human form appears without face, wandering on an infinite surface, a simulation of an impossible human condition. Alongside this work, Idiom, an unknown proto language, carried by mute humans wearing golden masks, is generated in real time through human synthetic vocalization and machine learning. Meanwhile UUmwelt-Annlee, are mental images generated by both human and non-human imagination. In Camata, a machine performs an enigmatic ritual centered around an unburied human skeleton discovered in the Chilean Atacama Desert, evoking an endless funeral ceremony or the emergence of an entity. The film is continuously edited in real time without beginning or end, through data collected by sensors in the exhibition. As this ritual unfolds, a metaphysical exchange occurs between different plans of reality, a bodiless entity, and a lifeless human body of what could be the beginning of a mythology.

Curated by Sungwon Kim, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of Leeum Museum of Art in close collaboration with Anne Stenne, Curator of Pierre Huyghe Studio

Organised by Leeum Museum of Art. In partnership with Bottega Veneta. 

Bottega Veneta continues its collaboration with the Leeum Museum of Art for the second year, supporting its 2025 inaugural exhibition—a solo presentation by French artist Pierre Huyghe. This partnership follows the House’s previous support of Huyghe’s 2024 exhibition at Punta della Dogana, Venice. In line with its commitment to cultural advocacy, Bottega Veneta also designed outfits in collaboration with the artist for the artwork Idiom, reflecting its dedication to excellence, craftsmanship, and its founding principles of craft and creativity.

Press contact: Miso Han, Communication Team, miso.han@samsung.com.