Pierre Huyghe - "Liminal"
This is the first of a series of short texts by Erich Weiss, where he discusses contemporary artists and their practice.
It gives an impression of his interests as curator/artist and function as an introduction both for the artists partcipating in the Barcelona residency/exhibition and for a wider audience.
The exhibition of Pierre Huyghe "Liminal" will last until 24 November, Punta della Dogana, Pinault Collection, Dorsoduro 2, Venice.
The exhibition was visited by Erich during the opening days of the Venice Biennale 2024.
It gives an impression of his interests as curator/artist and function as an introduction both for the artists partcipating in the Barcelona residency/exhibition and for a wider audience.
The exhibition of Pierre Huyghe "Liminal" will last until 24 November, Punta della Dogana, Pinault Collection, Dorsoduro 2, Venice.
The exhibition was visited by Erich during the opening days of the Venice Biennale 2024.
Pierre Huyghe
July 31, 2024
Erich Weiss
curator, external advisor of DOM Art Residence
The exhibtion was introduced by the following press release :
"Liminal, an exhibition created by Pierre Huyghe in close collaboration with curator Anne Stenne, presents major new creations alongside works from the last ten years, particularly from the Pinault Collection.
Pierre Huyghe has since long questioned the relation between the human and the non-human, and conceives his works as speculative fictions from which emerge other modalities of world. Fictions, to him, are “vehicles for accessing the possible or the impossible—what could be or could not be.”
With Liminal, Pierre Huyghe transforms Punta della Dogana into a dynamic, sensitive milieu perpetually evolving. The exhibition is a transitory state inhabited by human and non-human creatures and becomes the site of formation of subjectivities that are constantly learning, changing, and hybridizing. Their memories are expanding with information captured from events, both perceptible and imperceptible, that permeate the exhibition.
For Pierre Huyghe, the exhibition is an unpredictable ritual, where new possibilities are generated and coexist, without hierarchy or determinism. With Liminal, he calls our perception of reality into question, as if we were becoming strangers to ourselves, from a perspective other than human—inhuman."
"Liminal, an exhibition created by Pierre Huyghe in close collaboration with curator Anne Stenne, presents major new creations alongside works from the last ten years, particularly from the Pinault Collection.
Pierre Huyghe has since long questioned the relation between the human and the non-human, and conceives his works as speculative fictions from which emerge other modalities of world. Fictions, to him, are “vehicles for accessing the possible or the impossible—what could be or could not be.”
With Liminal, Pierre Huyghe transforms Punta della Dogana into a dynamic, sensitive milieu perpetually evolving. The exhibition is a transitory state inhabited by human and non-human creatures and becomes the site of formation of subjectivities that are constantly learning, changing, and hybridizing. Their memories are expanding with information captured from events, both perceptible and imperceptible, that permeate the exhibition.
For Pierre Huyghe, the exhibition is an unpredictable ritual, where new possibilities are generated and coexist, without hierarchy or determinism. With Liminal, he calls our perception of reality into question, as if we were becoming strangers to ourselves, from a perspective other than human—inhuman."
Pierre Huyghe: The inhuman entity evolves as it searches for stimuli, as it learns. Its memory is thus amplified over time, beyond the exhibition and the human realm. A brain organoid located in a lab made of few synthetic neural circuits, gives the human form a residual sensory function. As a gate keeper, subject to pain, the human form rejects unwanted information, thus influencing the learning process of the inhuman entity. Liminal therefore is an experiment, the simulation of a speculative human condition.
The scenography of "Liminal", the newest exhibition at the Pinault collection presenting work by Pierre Huyghe (1962) transforms the building into a darkened labyrinth. As a viewer we enter a fully obscure space, where only the pieces themselves provide some scarce light. The artist invites us to a ‘blind date’ and takes us on an erratic trip.
The title LIMINAL can be understood as : 1. situated at sensory treshold/barely perceptible/capable of elicting a response _ 2.being an intermediate state, phase, or condition/ in-between/transitional.
As a viewer, walking through the space, you feel disorientated and unsecure.
In the exhibition, where old and new pieces merge, Huyghe apparently asks our attention for a narrative that is inspired by self-learning or self-steering systems. It is as if the images we witness evolve, beyond the artist's will, through the input of environmental stimuli.
The impression we have is that the exhibition is like a living being, with an autonomous existence. We are mere observers, like accidental tourists/scientists in a new reality.
Apparently the artist invented a kind of black box, who observes and analyses our reactions in this new environment and traduces them into effects that influence the reality we are experiencing. He gathers data and transforms them into reactions within the exhibition process.
The artist is a Master of ceremony, a half god setting things in motion from the distance and who observes without interfering how everything develops.
The title LIMINAL can be understood as : 1. situated at sensory treshold/barely perceptible/capable of elicting a response _ 2.being an intermediate state, phase, or condition/ in-between/transitional.
As a viewer, walking through the space, you feel disorientated and unsecure.
In the exhibition, where old and new pieces merge, Huyghe apparently asks our attention for a narrative that is inspired by self-learning or self-steering systems. It is as if the images we witness evolve, beyond the artist's will, through the input of environmental stimuli.
The impression we have is that the exhibition is like a living being, with an autonomous existence. We are mere observers, like accidental tourists/scientists in a new reality.
Apparently the artist invented a kind of black box, who observes and analyses our reactions in this new environment and traduces them into effects that influence the reality we are experiencing. He gathers data and transforms them into reactions within the exhibition process.
The artist is a Master of ceremony, a half god setting things in motion from the distance and who observes without interfering how everything develops.
Liminal (2024) is also the title for the first big screen we are confronted with. It is almost as wide and high as the monumental space where it is presented.
It shows us a naked woman emerging from a vague (lunar ?) landscape. The person moves and approaches, till we can witness the smallest details of her body, from the hairs on her neck to spots on her pale skin.
It makes her human and recognizable. We could identify with her, were it not that her face is only a shiny, black and anonymous oval. It is as if her eyes, nose and mouth are cut out. This blind spot is frightening and makes her look like an ‘empty shell’.
According to the brochure text* this creature is controlled by a brain organoid that obtains information from a Portal, an insect-like silver antenna tower, standing behind the screen. Apparently the tower registers stimuli and also learns from them.
Watching for a longer time it seemed to me that images repeated after about twenty minutes. It makes the film look like a sophisticated animation. But maybe this precisely is the result of the machine’s calculation?
The woman sometimes wriggles on her back, like an insect. That makes her look more unhuman, or uncanny. She remembers creatures posessed by some alien.
It shows us a naked woman emerging from a vague (lunar ?) landscape. The person moves and approaches, till we can witness the smallest details of her body, from the hairs on her neck to spots on her pale skin.
It makes her human and recognizable. We could identify with her, were it not that her face is only a shiny, black and anonymous oval. It is as if her eyes, nose and mouth are cut out. This blind spot is frightening and makes her look like an ‘empty shell’.
According to the brochure text* this creature is controlled by a brain organoid that obtains information from a Portal, an insect-like silver antenna tower, standing behind the screen. Apparently the tower registers stimuli and also learns from them.
Watching for a longer time it seemed to me that images repeated after about twenty minutes. It makes the film look like a sophisticated animation. But maybe this precisely is the result of the machine’s calculation?
The woman sometimes wriggles on her back, like an insect. That makes her look more unhuman, or uncanny. She remembers creatures posessed by some alien.
Huyghe refers in the catalogue of the show to Lacan’s "Le Réel" and to Beckett’s "The Lost Ones" (1966-1970).
In a new, smaller dark room following this complex installation, the film 'Human Mask' (2014) can be seen.
What we witness is a small, kind monkey with a mask and a wig and dressed in girls’ clothes, that looks exactly like a little child working as assistant waitress in a restaurant.
However, the first images reveal that the restaurant is located in Fukushima, the Japanese town that has become an uninhabitable ghost town after the tsunami and nuclear disaster.
Maybe this animal was once a pet? Now the poor monkey wanders around alone, with occasional bursts of frenetic activity. We can only guess what is going on in the animal’s mind.
We only see her melancholic eyes behind the holes of the mask. She is a victim, left alone in a world destroyed by human errors and a natural catastrophe.
In the context of the exhibition we try to compare the situation with the first image (Liminal) and look for a comparison and alternative reading.
Like the woman in the film, the ape is both close and distant to us.
What we witness is a small, kind monkey with a mask and a wig and dressed in girls’ clothes, that looks exactly like a little child working as assistant waitress in a restaurant.
However, the first images reveal that the restaurant is located in Fukushima, the Japanese town that has become an uninhabitable ghost town after the tsunami and nuclear disaster.
Maybe this animal was once a pet? Now the poor monkey wanders around alone, with occasional bursts of frenetic activity. We can only guess what is going on in the animal’s mind.
We only see her melancholic eyes behind the holes of the mask. She is a victim, left alone in a world destroyed by human errors and a natural catastrophe.
In the context of the exhibition we try to compare the situation with the first image (Liminal) and look for a comparison and alternative reading.
Like the woman in the film, the ape is both close and distant to us.
The largest room of the exhibition host a spectacular screen and shows the film ‘Camata' (2024).
In the Atacama Desert in Chile, we see machines with camera’s surrounding the skeleton of a young man.
This desert is known as one of the most inhospitable areas in the world. The machines, which are ‘self-learning’ robots, film themselves and their surroundings and were placed there by the artist. It is a mystery how the individual, whose skeleton they are observing, arrived alone to this solitary spot.
Did he go there to commit suicide? Why was he travelling alone? What was the mission of his last journey?
It is not clear what the robots pretend to achieve with their gripping arms. They are just witnesses of the dramatic situation. They are not there to perform a weird funeral ritual. They only grab around aimlessly and observe the facts. We only are blinded once in a while by the mirrors that the machines carry. In the end their continuous research disapoints the viewer and drives him away to continue his parcours.
Apparently the editing of the film is also driven by a computer, who remixes the film every time again and again, according to the flux of visitors or the quantity of people watching or moving around in the exhibition space.
In the Atacama Desert in Chile, we see machines with camera’s surrounding the skeleton of a young man.
This desert is known as one of the most inhospitable areas in the world. The machines, which are ‘self-learning’ robots, film themselves and their surroundings and were placed there by the artist. It is a mystery how the individual, whose skeleton they are observing, arrived alone to this solitary spot.
Did he go there to commit suicide? Why was he travelling alone? What was the mission of his last journey?
It is not clear what the robots pretend to achieve with their gripping arms. They are just witnesses of the dramatic situation. They are not there to perform a weird funeral ritual. They only grab around aimlessly and observe the facts. We only are blinded once in a while by the mirrors that the machines carry. In the end their continuous research disapoints the viewer and drives him away to continue his parcours.
Apparently the editing of the film is also driven by a computer, who remixes the film every time again and again, according to the flux of visitors or the quantity of people watching or moving around in the exhibition space.
Did he go there to commit suicide? Why was he travelling alone ? What was the mission of his last journey?
The visual formula developed during the exhibiton remembered me the opening and closing images of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001 - A Space Odyssey’ (1968). In this film the birth of something ’new’ is also symbolically announced and ‘mankind’ seems to be carried to the grave. A rather non-optimistic message.
Only when leaving I discovered the sculpture in the next room : a cast of a pregnant belly made of volcano stone.
It was placed near to the image of the ‘Liminal’ woman - the mother figure ? What was this stone-belly pregnant of ?
Something new and promising ? Or a dead born child, like the skeleton in the other room ?
Its shape remembered also the strange golden masks some of the performers who dwell through the space were wearing.
These ‘guardians’ were walking around, suddenly appearing and disappearing or leaning in corners, sitting on the floor or resting somewhere, showing no specific interest or attention.
In fact the masks they are wearing are recording devices, who capture the surrounding conversations of the visitors and retransmit them after a lapse of time translated into a weird non-human mix language created with AI.
It is as if the artist wants to warn us how our universe is collapsing in front of our very eyes and transforming into something new, that seems completely out of control.
It is a rather pessimistic science fiction scenario he presents to us, that is frightening yet beautiful at the same time.
Only when leaving I discovered the sculpture in the next room : a cast of a pregnant belly made of volcano stone.
It was placed near to the image of the ‘Liminal’ woman - the mother figure ? What was this stone-belly pregnant of ?
Something new and promising ? Or a dead born child, like the skeleton in the other room ?
Its shape remembered also the strange golden masks some of the performers who dwell through the space were wearing.
These ‘guardians’ were walking around, suddenly appearing and disappearing or leaning in corners, sitting on the floor or resting somewhere, showing no specific interest or attention.
In fact the masks they are wearing are recording devices, who capture the surrounding conversations of the visitors and retransmit them after a lapse of time translated into a weird non-human mix language created with AI.
It is as if the artist wants to warn us how our universe is collapsing in front of our very eyes and transforming into something new, that seems completely out of control.
It is a rather pessimistic science fiction scenario he presents to us, that is frightening yet beautiful at the same time.