Camille Henrot Questions All the pieces in Her Playful New Work

Although she works in a visible self-discipline, Camille Henrot is fixated on that which may’t be seen. “Society has an invisible construction that we aren’t conscious of, as a result of it’s the water we swim in,” the French artist informed Artsy on a latest Zoom name, whereas within the midst of ultimate preparations for her newest solo present.

This poetic account of the social order was provided in relation to Henrot’s new sequence of bronze sculptures, titled “Abacus.” Impressed by the traditional counting instrument, these giant, patinaed works are featured in “A Variety of Issues,” Henrot’s present solo at Hauser & Wirth’s twenty second Road location in New York (on view by way of April twelfth). Along with new and previous sculptures and collages additionally included within the exhibition, these works look at the constructions that undergird our world—each seen and invisible—and query how and why they’ve grow to be basic to our methods of residing.

Methods of management and methods of structuring data have lengthy been considerations for Henrot. The artist, who was born in Paris in 1978 and is now based mostly in New York, studied on the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, graduating in 2001. Since then, she has grow to be recognized for her multidisciplinary follow—spanning sculpture, portray, and movie—that attracts inspiration from sources together with social media, literature, and psychoanalysis to underscore the anxieties that manifest in our globalized society. Henrot’s work has earned her a number of accolades, together with a coveted Silver Lion award on the Venice Biennale in 2013 for Grosse Fatigue, an bold movie that compiles imagery from Google and the Smithsonian to analyze the story of life itself.

At the moment, with “A Variety of Issues,” Henrot attracts consideration to programs that govern notion and expertise—from the times of the week to the best way numbers signify values—and highlights their arbitrary nature. For the “Abacus” sculptures, for instance, Henrot actually and conceptually bends the acquainted type of the calculating machine, which consists of beads which can be slid throughout rods set inside a body. The work 1263 / 3612 (Abacus) (2024) comprises three bronze posts resembling these of the instrument, every stacked with bead-like rubber rings. Nonetheless, Henrot has eliminated the posts from the abacus body and put in them on the ground. Their ends curve, as if being pulled or blown within the wind. “By making the works look baroque and exquisite, but in addition infantile and damaged, it’s a approach for me to point out that programs can’t be taken too critically,” Henrot defined.

Certainly, the works on this sequence additionally evoke kids’s maze toys with colourful wire loops and picket beads. For the artist, the affiliation stirs a way of potential. “Once I see these works collectively, I see that the present is about motion and power of development,” she stated. “Vegetation, animals, kids, all of us develop from a coiled seed form into a much bigger, bigger form. Data grows, too.”

The exhibition design furthers this affiliation with play and development. Henrot labored with the structure agency Charlap Hyman & Herrero to put in a inexperienced, gridded rubber flooring within the gallery, which calls to thoughts the tiled rubber mats of playgrounds. The flooring modifies the best way guests stroll, making a softer floor that provides a slight weightlessness to their toes. It additionally reduces noise, absorbing sound so guests really feel contained. “Even a delicate change could make individuals query one thing. The gallery is a brand new surroundings that’s separate from the one exterior, and by altering the ground from the identical one utilized in each different gallery, it makes the customer cease and suppose,” she stated.

Henrot additionally investigates extra overt and oppressive programs of order in “Dos and Don’ts” (2021–current), a sequence of mixed-media collages. Every of those works consists of layers of painted and printed components, together with excerpts of textual content dictating what the viewer ought to and shouldn’t do. Parts of those messages are echoed within the titles, reminiscent of Dos and Don’ts – The best way to Shake Palms (2024) and Dos and Don’ts – All of the Bridesmaids a Current (2024).

Henrot discovered these directives in etiquette books—obsessive guides to appearing with decorum. These books suggest an unseen authority who determines that we should act in a method and never one other. They go away unclear what occurs when somebody breaks a rule; as an alternative, we’re conditioned to self-police just by understanding what we must always and shouldn’t do. Moreover, the principles reinforce class programs by excluding these with out entry to accepted codes of habits, or with out the power to abide by them. “People made these guidelines, however they’re utterly arbitrary,” Henrot stated. “The extra you learn them, the extra absurd they grow to be.”

One other physique of labor featured in “A Variety of Issues” is Henrot’s sequence of whimsical canine sculptures. With almost a dozen examples within the present, this physique of labor speaks volumes about Henrot’s follow and her curiosity in manufactured order. The sculptures symbolize a wide range of supplies and breeds: Schoggi (2024) is a glossy metal model with a protracted snoot, maybe a borzoi; Francesco (2024) is a stout, carved wooden instance resembling a pitbull; and Richelieu (2023) is an Irish wolfhound made with metal wool, wooden, and textile.

“Residing on the Higher West Facet, I see canines of so many alternative sizes and shapes,” Henrot stated. “These canines—as domesticated animals—have been designed by people to suit our wants, remodeled over generations in their very own method of programs.” Notably, her canines all put on leashes, representing each the bonds between people and their pets and the considerably sinister nature of management and surveillance.