Camille Henrot on “Maison absolue” (Absolute House)
12.05.2019 from 12:00 to 12:30
May 12, noon
Room 12
Camille Henrot introduces the public to Maison absolue (Absolute House, 2019), a work conceived on the occasion of By Artists: From the Home to the Museum, from the Museum to the Home. Homages to the Works of the Cerruti Collection. Chapter 1. Both a house and a ‘piggy bank’, this sculpture is inspired by Picasso’s Oiseau sur une branche (1913) from the Cerruti Collection, as well as is referred to instruments used every day to measure and monitor, as if held by a child in his piggy bank. The sculpture’s shape resembles the Cubist Picasso, and the Egyptian pyramids. On the one hand, Maison absolue is a reflection on the ‘things of the Self’ – the objects making up our personal ‘sacred space’ – and on the concept of the ‘talisman’ or ‘contractual gift’, miraculous and restorative. The house – Villa Cerruti – conceived of as a museum, hence becomes an extension of the depth of the spirit towards the totality of the universe: an ‘absolute house’ and a gift-talisman.
Camille Henrot explores the objects and systems of consciousness that humanity surrounds itself with by combining film, drawing and sculpture with her thorough research of different areas and disciplines, from anthropology to cinema, mythology to ordinary daily life.