Camille Henrot’s video piece 'Grosse Fatigue' stood out among the audio-visual clamour of last year’s Venice Biennale, earning the 36-year-old New York-based French artist the Silver Lion award for most promising newcomer and much critical credit. (Last month she also picked up the Nam June Paik award, dedicated to the memory of the pioneering Korean electronic artist.) This month Grosse Fatigue arrives at the Gucci Museo for its first airing in Italy, proving once again that the label has far more to offer than handbags.
Henrot’s work is hugely ambitious in terms of the media she mixes – including film, video, installation, music, illustration, photography and sculpture – and the themes she tackles with them. Seemingly channelling Terence Mallick, Brian Cox and Lévi-Strauss, among many others, Henrot takes on science, history, ancient and modern myth, religion, art and anthropology: the mysteries of evolution and cosmic chance and how we've tried to explain those mysteries.
Grosse Fatigue was the result of months of research at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. It features music by French electronic musician Joakim and the voice of slam poet Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh, reading his own spoken-word poetry produced in collaboration with writer Jacob Bromberg. Alongside Grosse Fatigue, Henrot’s found-object sculptural work 'Tevau' (2009) is also on show.
Pictured are stills from the film work
The video piece was the result of months of research at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC and features music by French electronic musician Joakim and the voice of slam poet Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh
In the film, Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh reads his own spoken-word poem, produced in collaboration with writer Jacob Bromberg
'Grosse Fatigue' scooped the New York-based French artist the Biennale's Silver Lion award for most promising newcomer
Shown alongside 'Grosse Fatigue' is 'Tevau' (2009), one of Henrot’s found-object sculptural works.© Gucci
ADDRESS
Piazza della Signoria,10
50122 Firenze
Italy
-
The best design-led cocktail shakersIf you like your drinks shaken not stirred, these are the best cocktail shakers to take your mixology skills to the next level
-
Tech Editor, Jonathan Bell, selects six new and notable Bluetooth speaker designs, big, small and illuminatingThese six wireless speakers signal new creative partnerships and innovative tech approaches in a variety of scales and styles
-
As London’s V&A spotlights Mughal-era design, Santi Jewels tells of its enduring relevance‘The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence’ is about to open at London’s V&A. Here, Mughal jewellery expert and Santi Jewels founder Krishna Choudhary tells us of the influence the dynasty holds today
-
Royal College of Physicians Museum presents its archives in a glowing new lightLondon photography exhibition ‘Unfamiliar’, at the Royal College of Physicians Museum (23 January – 28 July 2023), presents clinical tools as you’ve never seen them before
-
Museum of Sex to open Miami outpost in spring 2023The Museum of Sex will expand with a new Miami outpost in spring 2023, housed in a former warehouse reimagined by Snøhetta and inaugurated with an exhibition by Hajime Sorayama
-
Jenny Holzer curates Louise Bourgeois: ‘She was infinite’The inimitable work of Louise Bourgeois is seen through the eyes of Jenny Holzer in this potent meeting of minds at Kunstmuseum Basel
-
‘A Show About Nothing’: group exhibition in Hangzhou celebrates emptinessThe inaugural exhibition at new Hangzhou cultural centre By Art Matters explores ‘nothingness’ through 30 local and international artists, including Maurizio Cattelan, Ghislaine Leung, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Liu Guoqiang and Yoko Ono
-
Three days in Doha: art, sport, desert, heatIn our three-day Doha diary, we record the fruits of Qatar’s cultural transformation, which involved Jeff Koons, a glass palace of books, and a desert sunset on Richard Serra
-
Hong Kong’s M+ Museum to open with six thematic showsAsia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture will open on 12 November in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, with six themed shows spanning art, design and architecture
-
Maurizio Cattelan invites the who’s who of culture to read bedtime storiesThe subversive Italian artist has recruited the likes of Iggy Pop, Takashi Murakami and Joan Jonas to read bedtime stories in a new digital project for the New Museum
-
James Turrell lights the way at Museo JumexThe California-born artist shows his true colours at the David Chipperfield-designed museum in Mexico City
