Exhibition | Pierre Huyghe | TarraWarra International 2015

Exhibtion Dates - 29th August – 22nd November 2015 | Curated by Amelia Barikin and Victoria Lynn

The first major Australian solo exhibition by internationally renowned contemporary French artist Pierre Huyghe will be presented at TarraWarraMuseum of Art, 29 August – 22 November 2015.

Pierre Huyghe, A Journey that wasn't, 2005. Film. Courtesy of the Artist.

Pierre Huyghe, A Journey that wasn’t, 2005. Film. Courtesy of the Artist.

This will be the second exhibition in the TarraWarra International series, designed to showcase leading contemporary art practice in a global context. The exhibition, which will occupy the entire space at TarraWarra, is described by the curators Amelia Barikin and Victoria Lynn describe as being ‘about time: geological time, historical time, subjective time, non-human time, and the time of art.’ The curatorial starting point for the exhibition is Huyghe’s founding of The Association of Freed Time in 1995, a collaborative proposal for liberating temporal horizons. At TarraWarra, Huyghe’s projects will be presented as a series of temporal excavations, highlighting art’s potential to generate science-fictional time zones and develop alternate human and non-human chronologies. Curators Victoria Lynn and Amelia Barikin comment, ‘Huyghe’s projects transport us to an ‘elsewhere’, while intensifying the conditions of the present moment. They cannot be consumed instantly. This is one reason why they are so politically and emotionally affective.’

Exhibition highlights include L’Expédition Scintillante Acte 2 Untitled (Light Box), 2002, a hallucinatory display of light, smoke and sound; Umwelt (2011), in which living spiders and ants inhabit the gallery, and several of Huyghe’s critically acclaimed films including A Way in Untilled (2012) – shot on site during Huyghe’s dOCUMENTA (13) project in Kassel – and A Journey That Wasn’t (2005) which traces Huyghe’s journey to Antarctica in search of a rare albino penguin.

TarraWarra Museum of Art, 311 Healesville -Yarra Glen Road, Healesville.

Website: www.twma.com.au

Open: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am to 5pm. Open all public holidays except Christmas day

About the artist | Pierre Huyghe (b. 1962, Paris) is an internationally renowned contemporary artist who lives and works in Santiago, Chile. Educated at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Graphiques et Décoratifs in Paris, he has held numerous major solo exhibitions at leading institutions around the world, including The Roof Garden Commission: Pierre Huyghe, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2015); Pierre Huyghe, LACMA, Los Angeles (2015); Pierre Huyghe, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2014); Pierre Huyghe, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013); El Día del Ojo, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, México D.F. (2012); La saison des fêtes, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Palacio de Cristal (2010); Celebration Park, ARC, Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris and Tate Modern, London (2006); and Pierre Huyghe, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2004).

He was a recipient of the Smithsonian American Museum’s Contemporary Artist Award (2010), and the Roswitha Haftmann Preis Award (2013). Huyghe is represented by Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Esther Schipper Gallery, Berlin; Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris; and Hauser & Wirth, London.

Related Events

SATELLITE FILM SCREENING: Pierre Huyghe, Untitled (Human Mask), 2014
Wednesday 2 September 6-7pm, ACMI Cinemas, Melbourne
At 6pm on Wednesday 2nd September, TarraWarra Museum of Art in association with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image present a special, one-off screening of Pierre Huyghe’s remarkable new work Untitled (Human Mask), 2014, at the ACMI cinemas. This work will be screened exclusively at ACMI as a satellite component of the exhibition, and will be preceded by an introduction by the curators. Untitled (Human Mask) is inspired by a real situation in Japan, in which a monkey – wearing the mask of a young woman – has been trained to work as a waitress. The film opens with footage of the deserted site of Fukushima in 2011, the camera functioning as a drone scaling the wreckage. The monkey is filmed alone in her now empty workplace, silhouetted against the dark, abandoned restaurant. In this dystopian setting, an animal acts out the human condition, trapped, endlessly repeating her unconscious role.

TALKS AND PERFORMANCES: Time out of Time: An Afternoon in the Valley
Saturday 24 October, 12pm - 6:30pm, TarraWarra Museum of Art
TarraWarra Museum of Art and Liquid Architecture in association with Melbourne Festival present Time Out of Time: An Afternoon in the Valley on Saturday 24th October, 12noon – 6.30pm (includes bus and light lunch). This lively event promises a unique afternoon of sound art, performances and talks curated especially for Melbourne Festival in the beautiful surrounds of the Yarra Valley. The afternoon begins with an optional bus ride from Federation Square to TarraWarra, accompanied by a specially commissioned sound work. At 2pm, a panel of curators, artists and philosophers will offer their creative insights and thoughts into the workings of time across aspects of art, lived experience, and the fabric of the cosmos. At 3.30pm, Liquid Architecture artists create live, time-based performances throughout the Museum and surrounding grounds. After refreshments, the bus will take us back to the city, as we recall the myriad of sensations experienced throughout the day. Information and bookings attwma.com.au.