Page 4 - The MoMA/ Guggenheim issue of World of Art magazine (2003)

soLomon r. guggenheIm MuseuM

New York

“we are extremely pleased to present the work of pierre hugo boss PrIze
huyghe, the 2002 winner of the hugo boss prize,” said
thomas krens, director, solomon r. guggenheim museum. Pierre HuygHe
‘through his remarkable body of work, which includes film,
photography, video, sound, computer animation, sculpture,
design, and architecture, huyghe examines the narrative PrIze WInner’s exhIbItIon Features FILm
structures of popular culture and the relationships between InstaLLatIon and scuLPture
fiction and reality, memory and history.”

“for me, art signifies innovation, creativity, and an exhIbItIon oF the Work oF French artIst
cosmopolitanism in its true sense,” said bruno sälzer,
chairman and ceo of hugo boss ag. “i am extremely PIerre huyghe, the WInner oF the hugo boss
pleased to honor pierre huyghe, whose work embodies the PrIze 2002, WILL oPen at the soLomon r.
spirit of ingenuity that this award seeks.”
guggenheIm museum on January 24, 2003. the
exhIbItIon WILL Present tWo Works, a FILm
huyghe has gained international prominence over the past InstaLLatIon Les grands ensembLes (2001) and
five years for his extraordinary works that explore the a scuLPture L ‘exPedItIon scIntILLante, act II:
convergence of reality and fiction, memory and history, and
their relationship to various modes of cultural production.
incorporating a range of media, in his diverse works, the
artist intervenes in various familiar narrative structures to untItLed (LIght shoW) (2002). the exhIbItIon
investigate the construction of collective and individual
identities. the artist is interested in both reading and WILL be InstaLLed In the toWer 2 annex
making possible multiple, subjective reinterpretations of the gaLLery through may 4,2003.
incidents and images that shape our realities. through such
“re-translations,” huyghe offers a way for his characters and
his viewers to retake control of their own image, their own
story. thIs exhIbItIon Is sPonsored by hugo boss ag.

for the guggenheim exhibition, huyghe presents two
works, a film installation les grands ensembles (2001)
and a sculpture l ‘expedition scintillante: act ii: untitled
(light show) (2002). both works address alternative modes
of representation and communication. in les grands
ensembles a pair of bleak buildings, models based on 1970s
french housing projects, enacts a subtle inanimate drama.
enveloped in a snowy fog, the uninhabited scene is both
romantic and alienating. “these subsidized public projects
ended up being an architectural and social failure,” explains
huyghe. “they were a corruption of le corbusier’s social
and architectural modernist theory.” these nondescript
structures were conceived as temporary, but have remained,
though somewhat invisibly. huyghe brings the buildings
into view and gives them agency. “without beginning or
ending, the two, low-income towers dialogue in a strange
morse code given by the light of their respective windows, a
blinking existence,” huyghe continues.

2 WorLd of art