PARIS.- Palais de Tokyo has invited Marguerite Humeau (born in 1986 in France, lives in London) for her first major solo exhibition. The artist has produced an entire series of new work for the project; a physical and sensory experience at the crossroads between research and fiction.
Myths, speculations and fantasies are at the heart of Marguerite Humeau’s artwork. The development of each project includes a phase of extensive research and collaboration with numerous specialists and scientists.
Therefore, as part of her long-term project, The Opera of Prehistoric Creatures (2012), Marguerite Humeau has met palaeontologists, zoologists, veterinarians, engineers, explorers, surgeons, doctors and radiologists with the aim of reviving the songs of ancestral animals, such as the mammoth. An extremely ambitious pursuit, partly due to the scarcity of fossil evidence of their vocal organs, primarily composed of tissue.
“It always starts with a mystery. My research process is for me a bit like a performance: I become a heroine on a quest to resurrect prehistoric creatures, to communicate with alien beings, to revive extinct languages from Cleopatra’s times … like an Indiana Jones in Google times.” 2
The sculptures she then created by reconstructing the larynx using Plexiglas tubes and latex membranes, use sound to set in motion a remarkable journey through time immemorial. “In general for me, sound is an important tool to use, because you feel it in the space – it’s physical and it creates an immersive experience.” 3
At Palais de Tokyo, Marguerite Humeau re-enacts the origin of life and the development of conscious life forms in an ominous atmosphere.
The space has been conceived as a “biological showroom”, inspired by industrial stands of demonstration and exhibition. The floor of the gallery space is covered with a carpet dyed using pigments that reproduce the chemical components of the human being and Datura , a plant associated with original sin. Marguerite Humeau uses it here to convoke the idea of a liquefied or poisoned human body, alluding to the so-called scientific theory of “primordial soup”, linked to the emergence of the first living organisms.
The fruit of the artist’s collaboration with linguists and palaeontologists, a polyphonic choir re-enacts the precise moment when a gene - named FOxP2 - mutated, allowing the vocal cords of the chimpanzee to develop and express themselves in an articulate language; the source of our humanity.
Finally, through research and discussions with several specialists, Marguerite Humeau has imagined a uchronia, in which giant elephant would dominate the planet had Homo sapiens not existed. with the idea of artificially creating conscious creatures (conscious of themselves), endowed with emotions, she has placed several sound sculptures at the heart of the exhibit. Made from very fine polyurethane foam and almost 3 metres high, the sculptures are positioned on metal structures.
“For Humeau, (…) digital technologies and scientific research come together to form a speculative artisticdesign practice, which allows her to operate within the realm of potential that is embedded within the speculative act of imagining possible futures.” 4
“Marguerite Humeau’s work stages the crossing of great distances in time and space, transitions between animal and mineral, and encounters between personal desires and natural forces.” 5
Marguerite Humeau was born in 1986 in France and lives in London. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2011 and has already held several solo exhibitions of her work: echoes, DUve, Berlin, Germany (2015), Horizons , Import Projects, Berlin Art week Jury Selection, Germany (2014), The Things? - A Trip to europa / Proposal for Serenading Outer Space Creatures with Stunts, vibrations, Chemistry, Light, and Live Magic, Trailer exhibition, Geneva (2013-2014).
Her artwork features among the collections of MoMA (New york) and the Lafayette Corporate Foundation (Paris), and has been presented in institutions such as MoMA, the Hayward Gallery, the Serpentine Gallery (London), the victoria and Albert Museum (London) and the Cité du Design (Saint-etienne). She has won several international prizes, including the British Society of Sculptors Award (2014).
Curator: Rebecca Lamarche-vadel
2 Artist quote from an interview with Alison Hugill, BerlinArtLink, May 2015
3 Artist quote from an interview with Agnes Gryczkowska, Sleek , May 2015
4 Hans Ulrich Obrist, CURA magazine, September 2015
5 Nadim Samman, artist’s website
