Offspring

For the inaugural exhibition of the Bourse de Commerce in 2021, entitled "Ouverture", Pierre Huyghe proposes with Offspring a poetic, timeless experience, tailored to the scale and darkness of the Studio, the large “black box” located in the new museum's basement.

This installation is a replay of L'Expédition scintillante, created in 2002. It is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and by a polar expedition the artist took part in aboard the schooner Tara.

This work's new act takes the form of a light box which emits wisps of smoke, intersected and coloured by bright beams of light, a ballet synchronized with Erik Satie's Gymnopédies 3 and 4 (1888). The installation randomly replays these different elements through an AI programme, making each experience of the work unique and giving the sense of being transported in time.

“What interests me,” explains Pierre Huyghe, “is the vital aspect of the image, the way in which an idea, an artefact, a language can stray into the contingent biological, mineral and physical reality. I want to expose viewers to something rather than just expose something to someone.”