'Streamside Day Follies,' a new project by French artist Pierre Huyghe. Incorporating a short fiction film into a specially designed pavilion occupying the fourth-floor gallery at Dia:Chelsea, in this exhibition Huyghe continues to explore the role of ideological and semiotic systems in the formation of social conventions and traditions.
"STREAMSIDE DAY FOLLIES," NEW FILM PROJECT
BY ARTIST PIERRE HUYGHE ON VIEW AT DIA:CHELSEA
On view from October 31, 2003, through January 11, 2004
Beginning Friday, October 31, 2003, Dia presents "Streamside Day
Follies," a new project by French artist Pierre Huyghe.
Incorporating a short fiction film into a specially designed
pavilion occupying the fourth-floor gallery at Dia:Chelsea, in
this exhibition Huyghe continues to explore the role of
ideological and semiotic systems in the formation of social
conventions and traditions.
For "Streamside Day Follies," Huyghe has designed an
architectural folly, which becomes the setting for the viewing
of his new film. The film projection begins after five
supplementary walls have slowly moved across the gallery space
to configure a jewel-like structure. When the film ends, the
pavilion disassembles itself and the walls retract to their
original positions along the perimeter of the space. When
stationary, each conceals a small mural painting applied
directly to the institutional fabric, which variously maps the
locale of a new residential settlement, where the film is set.
Opening with a bucolic idyll in an Edenic landscape -- an
evocation of historical representations of the Hudson Valley,
Huyghe's film traces the formation of a burgeoning community
hypothetically located in the valley today. A young family is
seen relocating from their suburban home to the new housing
development. For Huyghe, these two components limn a mythic
kernel that is then instantiated in events that comprise a
typical inaugural celebration, devised to forge a communal
identity. Analogous to the way a musical score is brought to
life in a concert performance, the third part of the film
reprises the mythic template laid out in the first two sections.
Huyghe's multifaceted project employs a diverse range of
cultural representations, garnered from nineteenth-century
utopian social projects and Hollywood films, Disney animation
and contemporary fiction writing, and romantic landscape
painting, which fuse with an actual event: The celebration,
which became part of the film, boasted a parade, costumes,
fireworks, all recently organized by the artist in the nascent
residential development that served as the prototype for his
fictional construct, "Streamside Day Follies."
An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Friday,
October 31, from 6 to 8 pm at Dia:Chelsea, 548 West 22nd Street,
New York City. The exhibition is on view through January 11,
2004. Hours for the 2003-04 season are Wednesday through Sunday,
12 noon to 6 pm.
Pierre Huyghe
Since graduation from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts
Décoratifs, Paris, in 1985, Huyghe has had solo exhibitions at
venues including the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2002); Neu
Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2002); Musée d'Art Moderne et
Contemporain, Geneva (2001); the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum,
Amsterdam (2001); Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montreal
(2000-2001); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the
Renaissance Society, University of Chicago (2000); Aarhus
Kunstmuseum, Denmark (1999); and Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville
de Paris (1998). Huyghe's work has been represented in group
exhibitions, including "Moving Pictures," Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York (2003); "No Ghost Just a Shell," at Kunsthalle
Zürich (2002); "Animations," at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center,
New York (2001); "Regarding Beauty," Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (1999); "Premises," Guggenheim
Museum SoHo, New York (1998); and at Documenta 11, Kassel
(2002); the Istanbul Biennial in 1999; the Carnegie
International, Pittsburgh (1999); Venice Biennale (1999); and
the second Johannesburg Biennial (1997). In 2001 Huyghe
represented France at the Venice Biennale, and in 2002 he
received the Hugo Boss Prize from the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum. He lives and works in Paris.
In the image: 'Snow White Lucie', 1997, video monitor.
Dia Art Foundation
Dia Art Foundation was founded in 1974. A nonprofit institution,
Dia plays a vital role among visual arts organizations
nationally and internationally by initiating, supporting,
presenting, and preserving art projects, and by serving as a
locus for interdisciplinary art and criticism. Dia presents its
permanent collection at Dia:Beacon, in Beacon, New York;
exhibitions and public programming at Dia:Chelsea, in New York
City; and long-term, site-specific projects in the western
United States, in New York City, and on Long Island.
For additional press information please contact Sarah Thompson,
tel. 212 293 5518; fax 212 989 4055
Dia:Chelsea, 548 West 22nd Street,
New York City