Photo: Nicolas Brasseur © Camille Henrot
Artist Walkthrough: Camille Henrot & Agustín Fuentes on ‘Camille Henrot. A Number of Things’
‘There’s a reason why, in English, the word ‘politics,’ ‘polite’ and ‘police’ all sound the same—they are all derived from the Greek word polis or city, the Latin equivalent is civitas, which also gives us ‘civility,’ ‘civic’ and a certain modern understanding of ‘civilization.’
David Graeber, ‘The Dawn of Everything’ (2021)
On the occasion of 'Camille Henrot. A Number of Things', the artist’s first major exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in New York City, please join us for a walkthrough with artist Camille Henrot, Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University, Agustín Fuentes and Curatorial Director at Hauser & Wirth, Alexis Lowry.
‘A Number of Things’ evokes children’s developmental tools, shoes, distorted graphs and counting devices, in new large-scale bronze sculptures from the artist’s ‘Abacus’ series (2024)—presented alongside recent smaller scaled works—addressing the friction between a nascent sense of imagination and society’s systems of signs. The exhibition also features vibrant new paintings from Henrot’s ongoing ‘Dos and Don’ts’ series which combines printing, painting and collage techniques with excerpts from etiquette books and computer desktop screenshots to serve as palimpsests for play with color, gesture, texture and trompe l’oeil. The artworks on view emerge from a site-specific flooring intervention conceived and designed by Henrot in collaboration with Charlap Hyman & Herrero. ‘A Number of Things’ vivaciously sets the stage for the arbitrary nature of human behavior to circulate freely between rule and exception.
This event is free, however, reservations are recommended.
About Camille Henrot
Born in 1978 in Paris, France, the artist lives and works in New York City.
The practice of French artist Camille Henrot moves seamlessly between film, painting, drawing, bronze, sculpture, and installation. Henrot draws upon references from literature, psychoanalysis, social media, cultural anthropology, self-help, and the banality of everyday life in order to question what it means to be both a private individual and a global subject.
A 2013 fellowship at the Smithsonian Institute resulted in her film ‘Grosse Fatigue,’ for which she was awarded the Silver Lion at the 55th Venice Biennale. She elaborated ideas from ‘Grosse Fatigue’ to conceive her acclaimed 2014 installation ‘The Pale Fox’ at Chisenhale Gallery in London. The exhibit, which displayed the breadth of her diverse output, went on to travel to institutions including Kunsthal Charlottenburg, Copenhagen; Bétonsalon – Centre for art and research, Paris; Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany; and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Japan. In 2017, Henrot was given carte blanche at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where she presented the major exhibition ‘Days Are Dogs,’ She is the recipient of the 2014 Nam June Paik Award and the 2015 Edvard Munch Award, and has participated in the Lyon, Berlin, Sydney and Liverpool Biennials, among others.
Henrot has had numerous solo exhibitions worldwide, including the Middelheim Museum, Belgium; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; New Museum, New York; Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin; New Orleans Museum of Art; Fondazione Memmo, Rome; Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Japan, among others.
About Agustín Fuentes
Professor Fuentes is an anthropologist whose research focuses on the biosocial, delving into the entanglement of biological systems with the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. From chasing monkeys in jungles and cities, to exploring the lives of our evolutionary ancestors, to examining human health, behavior, and diversity across the globe, Professor Fuentes is interested in both the big questions and the small details of what makes humans and our close relations tick. Earning his BA/BS in Anthropology and Zoology and his MA and PhD in Anthropology from UC Berkeley, he has conducted research across four continents, multiple species, and two-million years of human history. His current projects include exploring cooperation, creativity, and belief in human evolution, multispecies anthropologies, evolutionary theory and processes, and engaging race and racism. Fuentes is an active public scientist, a well-known blogger, lecturer, tweeter, and an explorer for National Geographic. Fuentes was recently awarded the Inaugural Communication & Outreach Award from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the President’s Award from the American Anthropological Association, and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
