'The Pale Fox' is dedicated to our endeavour to make sense of our world and our existence via objects that surround us and the way in which they relate to one another.
Westfälischer Kunstverein is pleased to announce the first large-scale solo exhibition in Germany by French artist Camille Henrot (b. 1978). The internationally reviewed solo exhibition “The Pale Fox” is a coproduction of four European institutions and will travel to Münster in February via London, Copenhagen and Paris.
“The Pale Fox” is dedicated to our endeavour to make sense of our world and our existence via objects that surround us and the way in which they relate to one another. Camille Henrot (b. 1978) orders and arranges over four hundred photographs, watercolours, bronzes and artefacts according to principles that obtain from the most diverse cultural, philosophical and biological contexts, primarily demonstrating, in a superimposition of this kind, the excesses of this compulsive desire for order that purportedly leads to the acquisition of knowledge. The “Pale Fox” in the title is taken from an anthropological study of the West African Dogon tribe (Griaule/Dieterlen 1965). In their religion, the pale fox stands for disorder and chaos, but equally for genesis and becoming; disorder is judged thus not as a transgression but as a necessary condition for creativity. At the same time, for Henrot, the figure of the pale fox represents a symptom of our digital age: the avid human driven by curiosity and impatience, whose pale complexion reflects the luminous play of the computer screen through which he peers at the world at night from the sanctity of his burrow.
Camille Henrot was born in Paris in 1978 and is based in New York. Henrot was awarded the prestigious Silver Lion at the 55th Biennale di Venezia in 2013 and garnered the Kunststiftung NRW’s Nam June Paik Award in November 2014. The Guardian ranks “The Pale Fox” among the ten best art shows of the year.
Image: Camille Henrot, The Pale Fox, 2014, installation view, Chisenhale Gallery. Commissioned and produced by Chisenhale Gallery in partnership with Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Bétonsalon – Centre for art and research, Paris and Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster. Courtesy kamel mennour, Paris and Johann König, Berlin. Photo: Andy Keate. © ADAGP
Press Contact:
Jenni Henke, henke@westfaelischer-kunstverein.de
Opening: Friday, 20 February at 7 pm
Westfälischer Kunstverein
Rothenburg 30,
48143 Münster
Opening hours
Tuesday-Sunday 11am–7pm