23. February - 29. April 2007
The Reykjavik Art Museum



Pierre Huyghe is among the most prominent French artists to emerge in the last decade of the twentieth century. Celebration Park is a continuation of his recent exhibitions at the Tate Modern and at the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville in París, but will also include new works not previously shown. Pierre Huyghe represented France at the Venice Biennial in 2001.
The exhibition is presented in cooperation with CulturesFrance and supported by a grant from Glitnir Bank.


Pierre Huyghe was born in Paris in 1962. He studied visual art at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, from which he graduated in 1985. Huyghe's work has been exhibited in many of the world's leading museums, including the Tate Modern in London in 2006, the Moderna in Stockholm in 2005, and the Guggenheim and The Dia Center for the Arts in New York in 2003. Huyghe represented France at the Venice Biennale in 2001. He lives and works in Paris.

In the latter part of the twentieth century French artists were not numerous in the world of international contemporary art, but toward the millennium they drew increasing attention, gaining eminence through participation in large international exhibitions. Nowadays French artists are conspicuous in prestigious international galleries such as The Marian Goodman Gallery, whose stable includes Christian Boltanski, Annette Messager and Pierre Huyghe. Other notable French artists who have come to prominence in recent years include Pierre & Gilles, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Jean-Mac Bustamante, the M/M design team, and Paris-based artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn.

Since 1990, Pierre Huyghe has attracted notice for diverse multimedia works in both conventional exhibition spaces and other public places. In addition to broad-ranging installations, he has exhibited photography, films, objects, posters, and works inviting public interventions. His artwork crystallizes his interest in qualities that can be discovered in all circumstances, creating tension between reality and imagination or facts and fabrication.

Exhibitions of Huyghe's work are distinguished by his efforts to develop the form of the exhibition, to shape the norm and approach to art in conventional exhibition spaces. Order and stability characterize conventional exhibitions, but contemporary art, including Huyghe's work, is characterized by mobility and instability. Time, motion, and location influence how the artworks come across and affect the viewer's experience.

The title of this exhibition at The Reykjavik Art Museum, LIVE - SHOW AS EXHIBITION, suggests how visitors may experience the works in a direct and unmediated way, like a performance of live music. The title also invites comparison between the experience of a staged production and the quiet experience characteristic of traditional art exhibitions.

The exhibit comprises three major installations, in three museum galleries, in which works from the Reykjavik Art Museum's collection are displayed and activated by a time protocol. In the course of the presentation the collective exhibition will become a show. In addition, three films/documents will present exhibitions taking the form of live public shows.

LIVE - SHOW AS EXHIBITION is a venue intended to create an atmosphere of freedom, celebration, and participation. The movies reflect Huyghe's interest in rituals, myths, fiction, and the image of truth presented in documentary films. The ideas in play here are orchestrated to create an atmosphere of challenge, in which questions of the moment can be freely and openly engaged. Supported by the French Embassy and CulturesFrance as part of Pourquoi Pas? - French Spring in Reykjavik, a citywide celebration of French culture in Reykjavik.


__________________________________
The Reykjavik Art Museum Offices:
Tryggvagata 17 (3rd floor)
101 Reykjavik
p.o.box 110, 121 Reykjavik
Tel: 590-1200
Fax: 590-1201
listasafn@reykjavik.is
www.listasafnreykjavikur.is