French touch

The story often goes (in France) that French artists aren’t internationally successful. But there are at least two artists who contradict this theory. They represent a contemporary “French touch” that’s as ambitious as it is insightful, and they see their work exhibited all over the world.

Creative cousins

They are like creative cousins, both interested in science, new technologies, flora and fauna, expressing a unique kind of contemporary poetry. Their names are Philippe Parreno (born in 1964) and Pierre Huyghe (born in 1962) and for a long time they were very close, before they grew apart in such a way that their respective bodies of work are very distinctive (See here the last interview of Philippe Parreno).

Soon at Leeum museum

Until 7 July Parreno is exhibiting at the Leeum Museum in Seoul, the biggest contemporary art museum in Korea, and it will be Pierre Huyghe’s turn to display his work there in February 2025. In the meantime, the future Seoul exhibition is presented at Punta della Dogana, one of François Pinault’s two Venetian museums.

An exhibition of questions

Some exhibitions generate responses. This one is clearly designed to raise questions. Here, everything is a mystery. Even the texts that accompany each of the installations are abstruse. Nevertheless, “Liminal”, the name of this great flight of techno-poetic fancy, is fascinating, astounding and even magical. The ensemble is made up of nine monumental installations made over the course of a decade, plunged into darkness.

Masked female figure

The first allows the viewer to observe a masked female figure on a giant screen who seems to be roaming through a desert and who is in fact evolving according to data transmitted by a sensor for sounds, lights etc posted a little further away. And in fact, all the subjects at Punta della Dogana are masked.

The monkey girl

There’s the film showing a monkey whose face is covered by a white Japanese theatre mask. It is dressed and has hair like a little girl, and walks, alone, through a café in Fukushima sometime after the tsunami. The artist made this apocalyptic film, “Human Mask”, in 2014. In the fine art field it’s probably one of the most significant films of our time.

Artificial intelligence

Figures wearing gold masks circulate through the rooms of the Venetian building, looking like they have helmets placed over their eyes. They also transmit data. A number of the artist’s works are evolving and are activated using artificial intelligence.

Magic, science of sign

Huyghe himself never has a simple answer. He didn’t want to do an individual filmed interview. He told me he is against social media etc. But when I ask him during the press conference if he believes in magic he replies: “Magic is the science of signs. Signs are an interplay of symbols. In this respect yes I believe in symbols.”

Science fiction

Likewise, on the subject of the science fiction aesthetic he flirts with throughout the exhibition while seeking a kind of truth he declares: “I have always been attracted to science fiction. It allows us to access other possibilities. Science fiction or philosophy are toys that enable the reconfiguration of pillars of truth.” He sees technology not as an end in itself but rather as an element in human transformation.

Dancing robots

The most mysterious work, “Camata” from 2024, is a kind of allegory about machines seizing power over mankind. It is a film shown on an XXL screen, also self-operating, showing robots dancing around a skeleton in the Atacama desert in Chile. (Huyghe is currently based in the country.) It’s as though the vanquishing robots are paying homage to what remains of Homo sapiens.

Emma Lavigne

The artist defends against this presaging of the end of the world, but we can’t help but think that it does exhibit, alas, certain premonitory faculties. “This exhibition is indeed complex because it is entering new territories while dealing with subjects which may be philosophical, metaphysical and scientific, but at the same time we can consider it to be simple in that it addresses the challenge of staying human in a world in constant motion,” concludes Emma Lavigne, director of the Pinault Collection.

New kind of Romanticism

At Punta della Dogana Pierre Huyghe stages a new kind of romanticism that we might view as technological, scientific or – more intriguingly – futuristic.

Until 24 November. Pierre Huyghe. Punta della Dogana. Venice. www.pinaultcollection.com/palazzograssi/fr