Parreno: Hypothesis

Curated by Andrea Lissoni at HangarBicocca, the first Italian retrospective by the French artist is left to run thus, in the obscurity, for at least two full hours, in a state of vigilant expectation.

Philippe Parreno
The dawn light of a chilly artic noon extends along the walls of the HangarBicocca in Milan, as if above a great, black parasol. The sun is a waxy sun, that burns with unusual fire, generating a flight of projected waves, slow-moving, that repeats with a simple mechanism and varying frequency within a given time interval.
Philippe Parreno
Top: Philippe Parreno “Hypothesis”, installation view at HangarBicocca, Milan. Courtesy of the Artist; Pilar Corrias Gallery; Gladstone Gallery; Esther Schipper; Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan. Above: Philippe Parreno, Danny the Street (2006-2015), detail. Courtesy of the Artist; Pilar Corrias Gallery; Gladstone Gallery; Esther Schipper; Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan
Black shamanic figures enter unhurriedly onto a large white screen, immaculate as the surface of the moon on the night of a Full Moon, before sinking, without notice, into a leaden darkness. Beyond, the celestial vision of Kiefer’s precarious palaces. A grand piano exhales a scent of soft notes. Strings are plucked by velvet phalanxes, invisible. Alien voices vibrate, haughty and synthetic. From a dark and empty wall a somewhat provocative image peers out like an apparition: a giant squid with iridescent scales, the acerbic face of a young girl with violet hair and eyes, a radiant cloud of fireflies. From time to time, the crashing thunder of a rainstorm unexpectedly erupts. The silver ring of a telephone. The breath of Marilyn Monroe.
Philippe Parreno
Philippe Parreno “Hypothesis”, installation view at HangarBicocca, Milan Courtesy of the Artist; Pilar Corrias Gallery; Gladstone Gallery; Esther Schipper; Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan
This latter age of human experience – automised, robotic, inorganic – evoked by Philippe Parreno with the exhibition “Hypothesis”, the first Italian retrospective by the French artist, that by virtue of its name, brings to mind “Hypnosis” the recent exhibition staged this summer in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall of Park Avenue Armony in New York – churns up in the visitor a singular sense of alienation, of passing as if unobserved, unknown. All along, wherever one extends a leg or arm, the exhibition space takes on a sidereal consistency. The star of Another Day with Another Sun (2014) – a band of light steered along a suspended track that crosses, from one side to another, the nave of the museum – descends slowly towards the sunset, rises up and it is dawn, lowers again in the west. The nineteen white sculptures in plexiglas that sparkle intermittently of Danny the Street (2006-2015) – a phantom Milky Way of aligned Marquees, of the kind once used to mark the entrance to theatres, especially in the US, with the titles of the shows displayed above – levitate at different heights from the ground, like small, parked spaceships.
Philippe Parreno
Philippe Parreno “Hypothesis”, installation view at HangarBicocca, Milan Courtesy of the Artist; Pilar Corrias Gallery; Gladstone Gallery; Esther Schipper; Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan
In the same way, remaining suspended in orbit, are the seven solids in transparent plastic, milky and suffused by mist, that form Set Elements for Walkaround Time (1968) by Jasper Johns: a bundle of stage props with all the vague figures of the The Large Glass by Duchamp stamped on them (originally made for a piece by Merce Cunningham) that charged with impenetrability seems to dispose itself naturally along the galactic routes traced by Parreno. “Hypothesis” is left to run thus, in the obscurity with its nose in the air, for at least two full hours, in a state of vigilant expectation. It has something of the eel-like, impregnable - exaggerating a little, of the subversive. Speakers and reflectors respond to a well-oiled and fluid choreography, supported by a simple Master Keyboard. From the pitch darkness springs an accord, a melody, a vibration so powerful that it fills a cathedral, rolls up, reaches us, impels us, overwhelms us. Then shatters, disperses. A blink of an eye and the darkness becomes light. And in these strident passages from darkness to light and from light to darkness, one is stupefied and each time has to readjust one’s eyes.
Philippe Parreno
Philippe Parreno “Hypothesis”, installation view at HangarBicocca, Milan Courtesy of the Artist; Pilar Corrias Gallery; Gladstone Gallery; Esther Schipper; Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan
Along Danny the Street lie nine of Parreno’s most acclaimed films – there are those who sit, enraptured and those who continue to wander preferring a vision of fragments. Images loaded with ambiguity and charm slowly emerge: the moonlike Annlee from Anywhere Out of the World (2000); the oversized mollusc of Alien Seasons (2002); the coils of beetles in With a Rhythmic Instinction to be Able to Travel Beyond Existing Forces of Life (2014): the interminable party of Snow Dancing (1995); the inaccessible heights of Mont Analogue (2001); the profile of an ox and the burning lanterns of The Boy from Mars (2003); the monstrous creatures and narrow backstreets of New York’s Chinatown in Invisibleboy (2010-15). And then, the bright and asphyxiating interiors of the Waldorf Astoria, deposited in the eyes of Marilyn (2012), the robotic handwriting, the genuine language... And instead a crowd in a trance, bewitched by the chimera of a non-existent pianist, moving the strings in the most recent film The Crowd (2015), whose alienated figures drenched in purple light, squatting or pulled down on the floor, featured in the promotional campaign for the exhibition.
Philippe Parreno
Philippe Parreno “Hypothesis”, installation view at HangarBicocca, Milan Courtesy of the Artist; Pilar Corrias Gallery; Gladstone Gallery; Esther Schipper; Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan
Born in the port of Oran in Algeria, Philippe Parreno is a reserved man with certain bold and powerful ideas. When his art began to rise to prominence, in the early 1990s, instead of signing works completed and hidden in his imagination (Fleurs from 1987 is an ordinary bouquet of flowers ruined in a frame out of focus: C’est une oeuvre d’art pendant onze mais de l’année et en décembre c’est Noël from 1993, is a unadorned Christmas tree; Speech Bubbles, from 1997 is a cloud of grey balloons in the form of a comic strip), he was interested – with Daniel Buren – in forms of production, exhibition and enjoyment that call these into question. He has also taken an interest, right from the start, in the theme of self-portrait and copyright (here it is worth mentioning the significant project No Ghost Just a Shell from 1999-2003 devised with Pierre Huyghe). Above all, he can only conceive of his work in league with others. Proof of this is in his first video, Ou (1966), a 20 second clip in which you can see a young person wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, followed by 6 minutes of listing all the people, ideas and contacts that led to the creation of the work.
Philippe Parreno
Philippe Parreno “Hypothesis”, installation view at HangarBicocca, Milan Courtesy of the Artist; Pilar Corrias Gallery; Gladstone Gallery; Esther Schipper; Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan
“Hypothesis” counts on an equally extensive string of names. Liam Gillick had an active role in the creation of Another Day with Another Sun; Tino Sehgal contributed with an audio track as did Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons. The piano solo is by Mickhail Rudy. The musical direction by Nicholas Becker, the airs of the Marquees by Agoria, Ranjana Leyendecker, Robert AA Lowe, Mirwais, Thomas Barteltt. Other credits expand the list. Andrea Lissoni, curator of the exhibition, should be promoted to five star general for the great job he did. Also, among the composers that have contributed to the sprawling choreography set up by Parreno, feature a number of disc jockeys and many unknowns. Because every so often, the backbone of “Hypothesis”, is contorted by the unexpected and brusque interruption of the high frequencies of a national radio station, on the airwaves of which the exhibition navigates for a few seconds. Suddenly the light comes on. The walls of the museum are stripped of everything to become a precarious refuge for an uncontrolled crowd of songs, jingles and coarse laughter. The effect is that of a chaotic market.
Philippe Parreno
Philippe Parreno “Hypothesis”, installation view at HangarBicocca, Milan Courtesy of the Artist; Pilar Corrias Gallery; Gladstone Gallery; Esther Schipper; Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan
Streams of voices present a crude and improvised performance by a singer promoting their latest album, an advertisement for an extraordinary toothpaste, the six o’clock news. A performance charged with so much human truth and such terrible mediocrity that it does not go against the astral architraves of the exhibition but rather adds alienation to alienation. A little girl called Sally tells us that it is DJ Riccardo Ciulli’s birthday. Immersed in Parreno’s cocooned, stellar spaces we see the traditional blowing-out of the candles, Fffffff, with a certain detachment, a bit like Dr Floyd in 2001 A Space Odyssey, participating with scarce enthusiasm in his daughter’s birthday, from a spaceship a million miles from earth. It is then the turn of a scientist who unceremoniously removes any certainty about the universe. For one thing, it’s not dark. Or rather it is for us humans but crabs for example see it radiant. Pufff, the lights go down. The radio is silent. the “Hypothesis” galaxy starts up again. Night descends. But after a few minutes it is dawn again. A clear dawn, that lights up the universe. And we feel part human and part crab.
© all rights reserved

until 14 February 2016
Philippe Parreno Hypothesis
HangarBicocca
via Chiese 2, Milan

Latest on Art

Latest on Domus

Read more
China Germany India Mexico, Central America and Caribbean Sri Lanka Korea icon-camera close icon-comments icon-down-sm icon-download icon-facebook icon-heart icon-heart icon-next-sm icon-next icon-pinterest icon-play icon-plus icon-prev-sm icon-prev Search icon-twitter icon-views icon-instagram