Loss of Artistic Control
Pierre Huyghe’s Biotope at documenta
For the Deutsche Bank-sponsored
project “A Journey That Wasn’t,” Pierre Huyghe embarked on a search for
the rare Albino penguin. In an exhibition in Berlin, he allowed ants
and spiders to take over the gallery space, while dogs and bees
currently inhabit his surreal documenta garden. The French artist’s
works do not, however, derive from a naïve love of animals. Achim
Drucks on Pierre Huyghe’s biotope for documenta and the boundaries
between art and life.
Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. Alive entities and inanimate things, made and not made. Dimensions and duration variable. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Nils Klinger
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Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Nils Klinger
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Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Achim Drucks
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Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Nils Klinger
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Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Achim Drucks
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Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Achim Drucks
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Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Nils Klinger
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Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Achim Drucks
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Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Achim Drucks
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Pierre Huyghe, Untilled, 2011–12. dOCUMENTA (13). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo: Nils Klinger
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Where is Human? The white dog is one of the stars of documenta 13; she even made it onto the cover of Monopol and Zeit magazine. But there’s no sign of the animal as I stroll through Pierre Huyghe’s
art biotope. Maybe Human doesn’t feel like being ogled anymore as a
living work of art? Did the hordes of visitors get on her nerves to the
point that she simply took off? And in the first place—can a dog be a
work of art? Apart from her name, the pink-colored leg the French
artist gave her has the effect that Human is not perceived as a mere
animal. Unfortunately, however, I can’t study this first-hand; the dog
simply won’t show up. One thing becomes abundantly clear during a visit
to Huyghe’s plot of land: working with animals brings with it a certain
loss of artistic control—at least if you let the animals run
free.
“Human is sleeping in the shed,” explains a young man who takes care of the Podenco dog
and the garden she lives in. “She needs some peace and quiet.” But not
because she’s overly stressed by her role as a work of art—Human is
simply following her nature. She ran around with a curator’s dachshund
for two hours in the Karlsaue, which must have been a sight to see: the
long-legged elegant greyhound and the small dachshund zipping around
the old trees and artist’s pavilions. The garden’s caretaker had to hop
on his bike to catch the two.
On the other hand, I have a bit of luck: Human’s roommate Señor is
there. Curious, the puppy heads for a pair of visitors. It’s not the
people he’s interested in, however, but the two dogs they have with
them. The three approach one another with a joyful wagging of tails.
This has all been seen thousands of times before, but in an art context
you automatically try to glean some extra bit of meaning from the
situation. Even if it’s only to envy the animals for their
uncomplicated way of getting to know one another. Or to realize that
the two dogs clearly perceive Human’s presence in the form of olfactory
messages that might be telling them how it feels to live in this
strange environment.
You have to search a bit for Huyghe’s biotope. It’s hidden behind a few
bushes at the end of the Karlsaue. Even during the documenta-free time,
the area is the exact opposite of the beautiful baroque park. This is
where plant refuse is normally collected so that it can transform into
fertile humus; now, plants grow freely in the name of art. Untilled
is the name Huyghe gave to his work, not "Untitled," as one might at
first think. "Untilled" land is land that is not cultivated, making
this an apt title because the overall impression is makeshift, like an
overgrown lot. Path sections are stacked between overgrown hills of
compost; a pile of black gravel sits near algae-covered puddles. But a
sculpture has been installed here, too: the reclining figure of a woman
on a cement block. Instead of a head, however, she has a huge beehive
on her shoulders, which lends the entire ensemble something totally
surreal.
This "head" consists of thousands of bees’ heads and bodies that
communicate continuously with one another. A buzzing cloud that thinks
as a whole, without a central organ. Swarm intelligence, so to speak,
replaces the brain and human understanding here. Decentralized
coordination, reaction to the signals of individual members, and simple
rules—these help the bees to organize themselves effectively—and they
can only respond to complex situations together, as a whole. Can they
act as a role model for us humans? The success of the Pirate Party
would indicate this. Using new forms of political involvement and
opinion-making, the Pirates appeal to many peoples’ desire to become
directly involved in the political process.
With its reference to non-human forms of intelligence, the inclusion of dogs, bees, and plants, Huyghe’s Untilled is one of the works at documenta that conveys the director’s concepts most effectively. For Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev,
the focus of the show is the “question as to whether we can imagine a
universe that’s less anthropocentric, a world of thought and active
life that’s not based especially on humans.” This is why, she
continues, “I’ve become known as the artistic director of documenta
who’s interested in the positions and perspectives of dogs—it’s true,
and I mean it quite seriously.” Christov-Bakargiev is concerned about
the “forms and active manifestations of knowledge among all living and
non-living producers of the world.” And that means not only people, but
also dogs, bees, and maybe even path segments.
Here, however, the swarm of bees also has a very concrete task to
perform. It pollinates the blossoms in the garden, ensuring that the
plants procreate. For his documenta project, Huyghe selected several
highly particular plants, each of which yields substances used in
witches’ brews or to make drugs: the extremely toxic foxglove (which contains digitalis) has beautiful pink and white flowers, and soon the deadly nightshade and jimson weed will bear their poisonous fruits as well. Cannibis also grows here, as well as rye, a harmless grain that is often home to ergot, a fungus from which LSD can be extracted. Coca plants
cannot, however be seen; it’s illegal to cultivate them, even in an art
context. And so we’re in a psycho garden where shamans can find a rich
choice of fuel for their travels to the realm of the gods and spirits.
Substances are grown here whose ingestion alters consciousness and
breaks down ordinary notions of the self and the world—at least for as
long as the high lasts.
Settings like these that are reminiscent of controlled experiments have
become typical for the work of the artist, who was born 1962 in Paris.
Yet he first became known with technically complicated works, such as
his video- and light installation Le Château de Turing, for which he received the Special Award at the 2001 Venice Biennale. Or his ambitious film A Journey That Wasn’t, which was sponsored by Deutsche Bank and premiered at the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
The first part of the project consisted of an expedition to Antarctica,
where Huyghe filmed rare albino penguins. The site for the second part
was the ice-skating rink in New York’s Central Park, where a musical version
of the adventure in ice was performed using fog machines, artificial
icebergs, figures of penguins, and a live orchestra. In the film, the
two parts are superimposed and ultimately lead the viewer to doubt the
truth of the documentary images as well.
Since that time, Huyghe has been working increasingly with animals, and
his art has become more direct and less technical. This was also
evident in his 2011 exhibition Influants at Esther Schipper.
When people entered the gallery, an announcer called out the name of
each respective visitor into an apparently empty room. Robbed of one’s
anonymity and with a heightened awareness, the visitor entered the
white cube only to discover moving black dots. A closer look revealed
ants and spiders crawling about the place. Visitors each reacted in
their own way: interested, amazed, or disgusted. They automatically
transformed into collaborators, and all at once began moving with great
caution in order not to step on the insects. Or they fled in fear as
quickly as possible in the direction of the exit.
On the other hand, his film The Host and the Cloud
(2009-2010) features a kind of human zoo. An empty museum building
became a temporary habitat for a group of actors whose performances
varied between choreography and spontaneous improvisation. They played
with puppies, were hypnotized, took drugs and reacted to them. The
whole thing ended in a mass orgy. The film of the action seldom reveals
what we are really seeing—whether it’s art, or real life arising out of
an artificial situation. A dissolving of boundaries between reality and
fiction is the essence of Pierre Huyghe’s works; process and chance
play a key role. And so just as Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev would like
to take leave of the human fantasy of omnipotence, Huyghe appears to
increasingly relinquish artistic control—to animals that resist
direction, or to people who become collaborators.
Huyghe’s documenta work doesn’t just happen to be in the compost pile;
this is a place whose extremely fertile soil not only nourishes plants,
but also ideas, associations, and feelings. Watching the bees, the dogs
playing, or in talking to other visitors, one can ponder the
differences between life and art, the perception of animals and of
humans. Or contemplate whether life and society can’t be organized
differently. With Untilled, Huyghe has created a biotope that can change our perception—even without partaking of psychotropic substances.
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