We are extremely
pleased to present the work of Pierre Huyghe, the 2002 winner of the
Hugo Boss Prize,” said Thomas Krens, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum. ‘Through his remarkable body of work, which includes film,
photography, video, sound, computer animation, sculpture, design, and
architecture, Huyghe examines the narrative structures of popular
culture and the relationships between fiction and reality, memory and
history.”
“For me, art signifies innovation, creativity, and cosmopolitanism in
its true sense,” said Bruno Sälzer, Chairman and CEO of Hugo Boss AG. “I
am extremely pleased to honor Pierre Huyghe, whose work embodies the
spirit of ingenuity that this award seeks.”
Huyghe has gained international prominence over the past five years for
his extraordinary works that explore the 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
investigate the construction of collective and individual identities.
The artist is interested in both reading and making possible multiple,
subjective reinterpretations of the 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.
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.
Forming an uncanny
dialogue with Les Grands Ensembles, the sculpture installation L
‘Expedition Scintillante. Act II: Untitled (light show) acts as a giant
music box. The sounds of Eric Satie reorchestrated by Claude Debussy
filter through the space as pulsating lights and smoke emanate from the
sculpture in the outer gallery. The effect is that of a “psychedelic
concert,” according to Huyghe. Huyghe recalls, “I remember Dan Graham
once said that Rock and Roll was the new religion.” The artist gives
form to the memory of this type of collective experience while conjuring
the strange connections between the realm of the familiar and that of
the unknown. Both pieces hint at alternative levels of reality and
prompt viewers to question the unseen powers that may control these
structures and, in turn, the effects that these environments exert over
the people in their midst. At the same time, confronted with what is
reminiscent of an empty stage, viewers are invited to project their own
stories into the scenario.
Pierre Huyghe was born in 1962 in Paris, where he currently lives and
works. The artist graduated form the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts
Décoratifs, Paris, in 1985. His work has been presented in numerous solo
exhibitions including shows at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria
(2002); Neu Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2002); Musée d’Art Moderne et
Contemporain, Geneva (2001); the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Amsterdam
(2001); Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal (2000-2001); Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the
Renaissance Society, University of Chicago (2000); Aarhus Kunstmuseum,
Denmark (1999); Musée d’Art Moderne de Ia Ville de Paris (1998).
His work has been represented in notable group exhibitions, including an
exhibition featuring Ann Lee at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2003);
the museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (2002-2003), and Moving
Pictures, on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum through January
12, 2003; No Ghost Just a Shell, Kunsthalle ZUrich (2002); Documenta 11,
Kassel (2002); Animations, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island
City, New York (2001); Regarding Beauty: A View of the Late Twentieth
Century, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., and
Haus der Kunst, Munich (1999-2000); the Istanbul Biennial (1999); the
Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1999); the Venice Biennale (1999);
Premises, Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York (1998); and the second
Johannesburg Biennial (1997). Additionally, Huyghe represented France at
the Venice Biennale (2001) and received a special award.
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Prize Winner’s Exhibition
Features Film Installation and Sculpture,
An exhibition of the work of French artist Pierre Huyghe, the winner
of the HUGO BOSS PRIZE 2002, will open at the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum on January 24, 2003. The exhibition will present two works, a
film installation Les Grands Ensembles (2001) and a sculpture
L‘Expedition Scintillante, Act II:
This exhibition is sponsored by HUGO BOSS AG.
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HUGO BOSS PRIZE
The HUGO BOSS PRIZE, a biennial international award
administered by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, was established
in 1996 to recognize significant achievement in contemporary art.
Since its inception the prize has been awarded to American artist
Matthew Barney (1996); Scottish artist Douglas Gordon (1998); and
Slovenian artist Marjetica Potrc (2000). Huyghe was selected by an
international jury which included Sandra Antelo-Suarez, independent
curator and founder and Editorial Director, TRANS>area and Trans
arts.cultures.media Lisa Dennison, Deputy Director and Chief Curator,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Yuko Hasegawa, Chief Curator, 21st
Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Thomas Krens,
Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Suzanne Page, Director,
ARC - Musée d’Art Moderne de Ia ViIle de Paris; and Nancy Spector,
Curator of Contemporary Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
HUGO BOSS AG has provided critical support for many of the Guggenheim
Museum’s programs since 1995. The company is a sponsor of the upcoming
Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle, and was a sponsor of the
exhibition Frank Gehiy, Architect, the highest attended exhibition in
the museum’s history. In addition, HUGO BOSS has helped to make
possible retrospectives of the work of Georg Baselitz, Ross Bleckner,
Francesco Clemente, Ellsworth Kelly, and Robert Rauschenberg, and
special projects with Jeff Koons and James Rosenquist.
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