Natural Companions: Ecosystems and Existence in the art of Marguerite Humeau
Marguerite Humeau is an artist unafraid of realization the imaginary. Her art practices fuses historic and futuristic research with the skills of craftsmanship and design, and the emotions and ideas of sprituality, philosophy and science. The French artist has been based in London since she studied at the Royal College of Art, and shows at White Cube in the UK and C L E A R I N G in Brussels and New York. She has had stand out solo shows at Tate Britain, Lafayette Anticipations, Jeu de Paume and New Museum, as well as inclusions in the most recent Venice Biennale, Sydney Biennial and Kunsthalle Basel. She’s an artist who is unafraid of working big, bold and addressing the huge issues of existence.
Humeau’s aesthetic is shifting. Best known for giant fluid biological style sculptural installations with sound elements, her new projects are pushing medium, collaboration and what her projects look like. There is always something mind-blowing alongside the accessible in her work. Here the esoteric walks hand in hand with the factual. The results are art experiences that make us address what is it to be human, in this world, at this moment in time. Humeau highlights are place in the long now of civilization.
Your work began as large, sculptural installations with sound elements, and really particular aesthetic. Your work now seems to be going in new directions from video to earthworks. What do you find interesting about how your work is shifting? How does connect to the work you are best known for?
It was a natural transition. Conceptually, I am exploring further many ideas that I have been preoccupied with for a very long time now. Things are also evolving. I’m still interested in mythological ecosystems and how they relate to existing ecosystems. I’m still digging into the deep past and the far future to understand the present(s). I am also still exploring parallel presents and their possible multitude. I had huge desire to bring more texture to my work. I never really talked about this – I’m thinking out loud. But I always felt that there was a lot of texture to my research and my conceptual thinking. And there was a big gap between what I was presenting as pure, raw experiences of death and life and states in between. These semi-mythological presences. There was a gap between that and all the texture that was happening before getting there. I started to wonder, what if I would bring that texture more to my sculptural and installation work? What would happen then?
For a long time, I was interested in accelerating life to a point where death doesn’t exist anymore, and analyzing what that could mean, and the horror that is triggered as a result. I then went on a quest exploring transcendence and how we can exist beyond our physical body. How can our existences persevere in eternal cycles? And I got much more interested – it’s been three years now – in our physical shells and inner worlds. Our imaginaries, dreams and how they crack, how they melt. How they maybe get reborn. I felt especially during the pandemic that we all had to almost collapse to get reborn. We were really lonely. It was very much about survival and then regeneration. It was a transition that started early 2020, when I was doing my explorations on weeds and the soil, that then gave birth to ‘Surface Horizon’ at Lafayette Anticipations.
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Let’s talk about research. Even just looking at your Instagram, when you were going around all these crazy postmodern buildings. We could feel your research process, this flow. What sparks your interest and draws you in? What makes you look at something?
That’s a really good question. I think it depends. Last year I went with my partner to the north of Australia, we crossed the Northern Territory from Darwin to Broome. It was amazing. I never travel with something specific in mind. I discovered the termite mounds there in Australia. I became completely obsessed. I downloaded this book that’s called ‘The Soul of the White Ant’ by Eugène Marais, written in the 30s. We were listening to this audiobook, as we were driving through the mounds. I’m encountering something and sometimes it clicks because it speaks to a broader concept that I’m interested in.
For a while, I had been thinking about how we could become collective bodies, how could we merge within the greater whole of Life. For a long time, I had been making bodies that are individuals – a vessel unto themselves, that would become communities as they would be brought together, for example, the elephant family mourning their matriarch in ‘FOXP2’ (2016), or ‘The Dancers in High Tide’ (2019). This time I wanted to create bodies, that would be the sum of their parts. I discovered the termite mounds. I was listening to this audio book. I connected the mounds to beehives and all the collective structures built by insects and also to the concept of human community centers. These concepts are also connected to my project in Colorado, ‘Orisons’. I feel we need to merge within the greater whole of life. It’s not so much about will we survive as a human species that really matters. It’s more about having the confidence that life will make it through all these different crises, and we need to nurture life around us. There are forms of life that will survive us. How can we take them as our guides or companions to understand how to navigate our own futures?
Meys is on show at White Cube Bermondsey April 5 to May 14
Full Interview by Twin’s Art Editor Francesca Gavin in this issue of Twin
Images:
Marguerite Humeau Migrations (El Niño, La Niña, Kuroshio), 2022, Installation view, 59th Biennale di Venezia. Courtesy the artist, C L E A R I N G and White Cube Photo: Roberto Marossi
Marguerite Humeau The Oracles of the Desert (detail) 2021 Steel, diamond drum cut prismatic light diffusers, aluminium dibond, Plexiglass, Plywood, grow lights, pale amber gold filters, clay soil, mattress foam, clairvoyant, plants variable dimensions, bioindicator plants : Greater Plantain / Plantago major, Annual Mercury / Mercurialis annua, Buck’s-Horn Plantain / Plantago coronopus, Ribwort Plantain / Plantago lanceolata, Broad-Leaved Dock / Rumex obtusifolius, Nipplewort / Lapsana communis, Ragweed / Ambrosia artemisiifolia, Common Amaranth / Amaranthus retroflexus, Fat-Hen / Chenopodium album, Curled Dock / Rumex crispus, Canadian Fleabane / Erigeron canadensis, Cuckoo-Pint / Arum maculatum, Hairy Bitter-Cress / Cardamine hirsute 561 x 654 x 381.3 cm Courtesy the Artist, C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels Image Credit: Julia Andréone
Twin correspondent and artist Cecilie Norgaard travelled to Milan to explore the emergent section of miart fair this April. London-based gallery Ginny on Frederick presented five sculptures on a high table by artist Guendalina Cerruti. They resembled miniature rides in a fun park and urban landmarks forming the skyline of a city. All the objects, clearly handcrafted, are made from a mix of wood, plastic beads, wire steel mesh, glitters, glue, fabric, and none of their dimensions exceed 70 centimetres. They seem direct extension of toys, underlining associations to childhood with their rainbow and soft pastel colour scheme. The bigger pieces are decorated by photographs from what seems like someone’s photo roll.
I have a thing for miniatures. The part of me that pressed a fascinated face against the glass montre of a large miniature landscape, through which different electric trains drove upon the toss of a small coin in the central station of my childhood lives on. Many childish miniature passions have matured into adult dedication and dexterity and become complicated, nerdy, professional hobbies – from Warhammer to collections of electronic and self-assembled miniature vehicles, to the elaborate design of the landscapes that these objects inhabit. Art too, I would argue, is “refined” childhood passion matured in a subject over time. The minimum criterion for good art, I would propose, is when the subject, the artist, opens their eyes to their surroundings to the extent of finding resonance outside themselves with whatever their passion is – and creates from there.
The reason why I find Cerruti’s sculptures brilliant in the context of the fair is because they’re very effective mirrors of a contemporary condition. By literally thematising entertainment and spectacle, one can perceive the works as a metaphor for the art fair as fun park: hysterical and sensation-driven, too sweet, too loud, too exciting, way too exhausting. I really like how meticulously they’re crafted. To me this communicates authenticity and intimacy which makes the sweet mockery they engage translate as sympathetic and self-aware, rather than sarcastic and condescending. These objects are someone’s darlings. The care they hold, combined with the alludes to innocence, contrasts the cynicism of the market within which they’re traded. They’re aware that they quite concretely depict entertainment value and old fashioned stimuli, like ice cream and rollercoasters. They are the entertainment around which all the hysterical transactionality happens.
As I inquire the gallerist about the work he goes on to demonstrate how it can be interacted with; he spins the work ‘Life is a Giant Wheel’ and multi-coloured beads slide up and down the spokes as they used to on the rear wheel of my bicycle. It is clear that the interactive part of the work is sensitive. “It has already been sold, so we shouldn’t spin it too much,” he says. In the context of the fair, the works function as good mirrors of the holy Trinity inner-child-professionalist-Artist, fun-fair-ride-promoter-conductor-Gallerist, and of the Consumer, for whom the spin is reserved.
First showcased at London fashion week 2022, the noon by Noor collection comes into its own this spring. Pale Pinks, Mint Greens, Stone and Navy create a neutral base from which the brand plays with texture and form.
Noon By Noor designers Shaikha Noor Al Khalifa and Shaikha Haya Al Khalifa present precision engineered sportswear-inspired shapes and sculptural layers. Boxy oversized shirts meet chiffon and lace, layered over low slung pants or dresses
“We think the Noon By Noor woman will have fun styling this collection. It is conceptually simple yet rich with unexpected details,” said Shaikha Haya Al Khalifa.
Simplicity of form, function and a clean precise aesthetic extends through to the photography and styling in this strong visual identity.
The collection is conceptually presented with a film that showcases a portrayal of sisterhood in the context of the home through sculptural gestures, touch and togetherness.
The designers worked alongside Art Director Sarah-Jayne Todd, Photographer and Filmmaker Esther Theaker, Stylist Hanna Kelifa and Casting Director Gabrielle Lawrence to craft the season’s visual media starring identical twins AmelieKöpf and Charlotte Köpf exclusive to Noon By Noor at London Fashion Week.“We loved engaging with an all-woman team this season and are very grateful for everyone who has helped us bring our vision to life” remarks Shaikha Noor Al Khalifa.
Founded in Bahrain in 2008 by business partners and cousins, Shaikha Noor Al Khalifa and Shaikha Haya Al Khalifa, the womenswear brand became the first GCC-based fashion brand to be invited to NYFW in 2013, where it continued to show prior to its shift to LFW in 2021.
At the end of a deep Berlin tunnel, lies an exhibition that marks the cornerstone of this year’s edition of CTM festival in Berlin. We Found Our Own Reality examines the cultural, political, and post-colonial echoes of South Asia’s avant-garde sonic pioneers. This large-scale exhibition at Betonhalle, brings together architecture, furniture, textiles, and sound to explore India’s first electronic music studio, founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design (NID)* in Ahmedabad. The exhibition curator – artist and musician Paul Purgas – also presents a new work from a collection of unheard recordings by five previously unknown Indian electronic composers.
Alongside the exhibition and vast research output by Purgas, is an in depth talks and events programme, including a great discussion on “Feminist Perspectives on Night Life and Music Scenes in India and its Global Diaspora” with Nabihah Iqbal and Dehli-based DJ Lush Lata, who went on to bring her legendary mix of influences Panorama Bar for Thursday evening’s CTM club night.
*”Founded after India’s independence, the NID was a multi-disciplinary facility to train a new generation of free thinking modern designers, animators, ceramicists, film-makers, and sound artists. The exhibition explores the technological and experimental ambition of the NID’s electronic music studio across its four year lifespan at a moment of unprecedented national transformation and cultural exchange between Western and Indian Modernist ideologies, narrating its dialogue with the international sonic and visual avant-gardes of Europe and the USA.”
Ray Stevenson, The Bromley, 1978 (c) Ray Stevenson.jpg
A giant fanged mouth frames the entrance to the subterreanean space of Somerset house on London’s embankment this winter.
Presenting some of the greatest cultural provocateurs and visionaries, The Horror Show! examines how ideas rooted in horror have informed the last 50 years of creative rebellion in Britain.
An immersive exhibition through over 200 artworks and culturally significant artefacts, the exhibition presents modern British history in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch through 1970s punk to the revolutionary potential of modern witchcraft, showing how “the anarchic alchemy of horror – its subversion, transgression and the supernatural – can help make sense of the world around us”.
Juno Calypso , A Dream in Green, Courtesy of the artist
Horror not only allows us to express our deepest fears; it gives a powerful voice to the marginalised and society’s outliers, providing us with tools to overcome our anxieties and imagine a radically different future.
The exhibition is an invitation to imagine a radically different future through outliers and marginalised persons and practices. The Horror Show! is co-curated by BAFTA nominated filmmakers Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard with curator Claire Catterall and open until 19th Feb 2022.
Ninni Nummela is a professional make-up artist known for her editorial work and plethora of celebrity clients. She has a keen eye for touching simplicity, focusing on the enhancement of natural beauty. Emma Clarke caught up with Nummella to talk with her about a recent project using Chanel Noir Allure – Chanel’s latest innovative mascara.
What were your main influences/inspirations for the look created with Liz Collins, using Chanel Noir Allure? We wanted to create a story with beautiful moments on a late summer’s day, where an effortless beauty look with naturally radiant skin brings focus to the Chanel Noir Allure mascara. Lived in mascara, like she’s been wearing it all day; swimming, running, lounging. Nothing too perfect.
What about Chanel’s style is synonymous with your creative outlook? I love the understated elegance of Chanel. The simplicity and beauty. It’s very much synonymous with my work and how I approach beauty.
Chanel Noir Allure’s design is indicative of simplicity. What is your definition of both and how is that reflected in your work? To me Chanel makeup is iconic; the design, colours and compacts all reflect a true elegance. The Chanel Noir Allure mascara is the epitome of Chanel; sleek, beautiful and easy to use.
My work is very much less is more. I always strive to enhance the individual beauty of the person I’m working with by enhancing elements and never applying too much.
How do you negotiate the balance between an iconic beauty brand and innovation? I always try to innovate and create looks that will inspire, while always reflecting the essence of the iconic Chanel brand.
What do you envision the future of beauty and style to be? I envision individuality will play a big role, in both beauty and style. Self-expression and inclusivity.
The CHANEL Spring-Summer 2023 Ready-To-Wear Collection draws inspiration from arthouse film Last Year in Marienbad (1961) by Alain Renais. A haunting classic, the fiolm takes place in an eerie Marienbad and splices together scenes in a non-linear series of images and set pieces, and similarly the CHANEL Spring-Summer 2023 Ready-to-Wear collection is described as a collage.
The collection is imagined by Virginie Viard as a “free stroll through fragments, it exposes an imaginary world confronted with itself, offering variations on the theme of allure” as she explains, “the films we have seen, those that possess us and those we invent for ourselves, Marienbad, the Nouvelle Vague, the allure according to Gabrielle Chanel, Karl, the night, feathers, sequins, heels: I like it when things get mixed up”.
The collection seams together bows, boas, rhinestone boots, jersey worked like scales and chiffon tracing contours of the body, flowing and dreamlike.
Virginie explains, “whether it’s her [Kristen Stewart], or the other women I dress, I need to feel that they like the clothes anyway. But, of the people around me, she is the closest to Gabrielle Chanel, at least to my idea of her. She understands CHANEL, its clothes. And with her, it becomes even more modern. This collection, it’s also her.”
The makeup mirrored the timeless colour paletteof the show with nude shades on the eyes and lips to compliment each models skin tone.
The lashes were kept bare with only a light dusting of Les 4 Ombres Tweed on the lids.
Opening this evening at London’s Gagosian gallery, this large scale photographic exhibition showcases the work of Altanta-born photographer Tyler Mitchell, now reknowned for his distinctive editorials including Beyoncé’s cover for Vogue. Describing the exhibition he explains,
“Collectively, these moments become figments of an imaginative psychic state of being, one in which radiance, resistance, restraint, comfort, and full human agency exist.“
The duality of organic and manmade, staged and naturalistic combine in Cage, which shows a woman posing before a painted backdrop of a garden surrounded by a white picket fence.
For Chrysalis, the New York photographer has continued his exloration of youth and coming of age while reflecting on the history of photographic images of Black people, particularly in the American South. The images bring into focus a sense of spirituality, transformation and aspiration.
As the gallery describes, “Chrysalis presents images of Black men and women in idyllic states of leisure and repose, safe and unencumbered by social expectations. In a photograph that shares its title with the exhibition, a young man sleeps on a blanket-covered bed, within the protective cocoon of a mosquito net.”
TYLER MITCHELL Chrysalis October 6–November 12, 2022 Gagosian 17–19 Davies Street, London
Mitchell’s work is also to be featured in The New Black Vanguard, an exhibition curated by Antwaun Sargent that will open at Saatchi Gallery, London, on October 28, 2022.
Tyler Mitchell, Gagosian Gallery, Davies Street, September 2022
An intimate photography show opened in Paris last week for one evening only, organised by Agnes Costa in association with Rapid Eye Darkroom . invited artists to respond to the brief “blurry”. The intimate show played host to the bright lights of the photography world including Drew Vickers, Maxime Imbert and Larissa Hoffman.
Louis Canadas
As Agnes explains, “I used to organise these kind of exhibitions at Rapid eye when I was working there – I would give a theme (we did ‘Blue’, ‘Pink’ and ‘Woman’ at Rapid eye few years ago) – and then ask a few of my friends to hand print something. Everyone was free to print anything they wanted around that theme, so we would always end up with something very versatile and interesting…I moved to Paris to open my own darkroom here and it made sense to keep organising these kind of events that bring people together and celebrate hand printing which is something very dear to my heart!”
Thomas Christiani
The exhibition took place at Flou, 13 Rue de Mont Louis, 75011 Paris
For London Fashion Week 2022, Twin commissioned photographer Natalie Lloyd to document the brightest, boldest, best and most distinctive moments of the week.
Below are the highlights from BMUET(TE)’s presentation Spring-Summer 2023…
For London Fashion Week 2022, Twin commissioned photographer Natalie Lloyd to roam around the shows and document the brightest, boldest, best and most distinctive moments of the week.
Below are the highlights from Sinéad O’Dwyer‘s presentation Spring-Summer 2023…
For London Fashion Week 2022, Twin commissioned photographer Natalie Lloyd to roam around the shows and document the brightest, boldest, best and most distinctive moments of the week…
Below are the highlights from TOGA‘s presentation Spring-Summer 2023
A Goodbye Letter, A Love Call, A Wakeup Song was the title of the 2021 Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, curated by the collective DIS and director Andrea Bellini. Envisaged as a pilot season of myriad different broadcasts that aimed to interrupt the established order of the day, the exhibition was staged in a labyrinth of set-like screening rooms, over the three floors of the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva. This stellar list of artists alongside DIS included Mandy Harris Williams, Simon Fujiwara, Camille Henrot and TELFAR.
It’s for this Biennale that DIS created their first feature film, Everything But The World, which pertinently explores the potential of debunking and deconstructing information and narrative. This feature film is now the key piece in their current exhibition How to Become A Fossil. Billed as a non-linear natural history show, it included an alt-star studded cast including Leila Weinraub, Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch, Brontez Purnell and a soundtrack by Fatima Al Qadiri. The film veers from a skit on how to become a fossil to a sexed-up guide lead a tour of an Italian castle, inspired by Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch.
Alongside DIS in the Biennale, Mandy Harris Williams beckoned “Glamourise the intellectual” in her work Couture Critiques. Installed in a classroom scene, complete with wooden table and chairs, the video takes the form of an extended Instagram-inspired photoshoot, interspersed with clips of Edward Said speeches and José Esteban Muñoz excerpts. With a direct yet astute humour, Harris Williams problematizes the ways that we receive information through layers of media and performativity, questioning how hierarchies are created to legitimize different forms of knowledge. Speaking directly to the camera, she pronounces that through love, care and eroticism we can embrace the full and subversive power of ideas collectively.
Identity and its many discontents were a recurring theme within the exhibition. In Santa Sangre, an eight song story of redemption and self acceptance, Sabrina Röthlisberger Belkacem challenges the notion of Swiss national perfectionism. Moving from one music video montage to the next, and interlaced with poetry by the artist, the work draws on mysticism and pop ritual. Hannah Black and Juliana Huxtable collaborated with And Or Forever to transform their 2019 performance Penumbra into an enthralling 3D visual. The work depicts a courtroom trial that pits humans against wildlife, interrogating the distinction between nature and culture and ultimately how social construct can limit our experience of reality.
Don’t miss a second chance to catch DIS.
How to Become a Fossil by Dis is on at Secession March 4 – June 12, 2022
Robert Grey is the friend we all need right now. As they explain, “with the world as it is, a note from a friend in the right moment can mean the difference between disaster and delight.” The trauma-informed therapist and reiki master has become well known with those in the know as a compassionate, intersectional and conscious practitioner. Their journey as a trans non-binary healer lit the way for their path of self-love and self-acceptance. Now they are sharing these tools in an innovative audio subscription that offers spiritual guidance and wellbeing practices for daily life. Differing from mindfulness apps and larger scale one-size-fits-all enterprises, Robert’s notes are warm and personal. They offer moments of reflection, meditation and contemplation to help navigate the day at hand.
Be Where You Are: Notes From A Friend are five minute voice notes recorded during robert’s self practice each day and sent on that morning, so that the practice can be shared. These intimate insights stem from Robert’s own experience and often include explorations in astrology, tarot, ritual, meditation, devotion and self-healing. This sense of a wider community listening in adds to the appeal for subscribers and for Robert also, “I offer ongoing support for a community that in turn supports me. I believe in a healer for every village, so this subscription has essentially become my village.” To have the velvet voice of a caring friend send healing vibrations through your phone speaker we think sounds dreamy, and is a good way of remembering to take moments in the day for self care.
Robert’s note for today:
“There are many kinds of love, and in my experience they each request the same simple devotion: that we become open to it”.
Luxury footwear and accessories brand CHARLES & KEITH and the designers behind SHUSHU / TONG have unveiled their first collaborative capsule collection this spring season. And everything’s coming up roses.
The capsule features two bags and two shoe designs, centred around the motif of the rose. Beautiful and fragile, dangerous and charming, the theme evokes love and desire and we are certainly smitten with the collection’s retro romantic charm.
“The rose has become a significant symbol in literature and art,” explains SHUSHU/TONG, “Traditionally, roses only bloomed once a year, which means it was destined to live for a short period of time. A fragile, withering rose exudes fleeting beauty. Sharp thorns line its soft, delicate branches; this danger is a metaphor for the price we sometimes need to pay for love.”
With the collection’s red and black colour palette, the rose motif reflects SHUSHU / TONG’s unabashed femininity merged with the understated elegance of CHARLES & KEITH’s designs. Mary Janes with a twist and vintage-inspired handbags in patent leather and satin fabrics, the campaign syncs the accessories brand’s signature shapes with the duo’s whimsical charm.
Directed by fashion photographer Zeng Wu Zhang and styled by Liu Xiao, the creative chemistry between the two brands is clear to see. The collection is available to purchase in selected CHARLES & KEITH boutiques and on www.charleskeith.com.
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