A typical tourist’s impression of this city— bright neon lights and the din of traffic—is transformed into elegant poetry in Parreno’s summer installation at the Park Avenue Armory, H{N)YPN(Y}OSIS. As the artist says, “There is no object of art without its exhibition.” Indeed, the show hypnotizes its audience with it’s immersive dazzle, inviting them to experience the cavernous space, the passage of time and the uncanny atmosphere.
Composed of five films, twenty-six marquees and a rotating viewing platform, H{N)YPN(Y}OSIS rebuilds the City in Park Avenue Armory’s wide and column-free space. As viewers first walk through the door, these high-hung marquees—entitled Danny The Street (2014)—represent various styles change lights in sync with the background sound, captured from the street outside. Though it’s not exactly the New York viewers see everyday, it’s enough to conjure the silhouette of the city. In between the marquees, a huge LED screen shows Parreno’s work Anywhere Out of the World (2000). Animated character Annlee turns into a real girl in front of viewers, naively asking “How are you doing?” This is not the only choreographed event. Sitting on the rotation platform inspired by Jacques Polieri, viewers are able to hear an unannounced schedule of live piano performances, staged interactions, and films on screen.
June 8, 1968 (2009) is a train voyage from New York to Washington D.C. Invisibleboy (2010) is a fantasized world of a boy who lived in Chinatown. Marilyn (2012) takes place in the room of the Waldorf Astoria, where the superstar once lived. Parreno, deeply interested in group dynamics,y, in his latest film The Crowd (2015) pictures a group of people walking, talking and sitting in the very same space of the Park Avenue Armory. Viewers look on the crowd from above; lose perspective in the midst of the crowd, even meet them face to face. The gaze of the crowd is intimate yet intimidated; the on-and-off light on set suggests the marquees of the exhibition, though none are visible in the frame; the uncertainty evokes a different kind of familiarity. The crowd is waiting for something, as the viewers are: for time to pass.
SCREEN briefly interviewed one of the curators Hans-Ulrich Obrist.
Shih-yu Hsu: H{N)YPN(Y}OSIS is entirely based on Philippe Parreno’s work, which is in some ways curatorial. What do you think of the curator’s role in this exhibition?
Hans-Ulrich Obrist: I’ve known Philippe Parreno well for a long time. I helped with his first solo exhibition in Paris sixteen years ago and we have been close since then. His works are about space and time, and especially for this one. I would say that my role is to have a daily conversation with him. The role of curator is getting the artist’s vision to become reality, you know.
SYH: What is the difference between this exhibition and his past ones?
HUO: It’s different in many ways. In his past exhibitions, he brings viewers from one space to another like exhibitions in Pompidou or Palais de Tokyo. However, H{N)YPN(Y}OSIS, for the first time uses just one huge space. Viewers are able to move freely. The space also makes all the elements’—like big screens, marquees and piano performances—coexistence possible. For the newly created work The Crowd (2015), the audience looks into the people in the film and people in the film look at the audience. It’s a little bit confusing. Marcel Duchamp once said that “I can see how you see but I cannot hear how you hear.” That is the origin of this piece. Another difference is that more live elements are added into this exhibition, like the live piano performance, or the children dancers who extend the 2D character Annlee into 4D real existence. We worked together very closely, with Parreno, with Tino Sehgal, with Alex (one of the three curators).
H{N)YPN(Y}OSIS is on view from June 11 to August 2 at the Park Avenue Armory, tickets are $15.
