From “Is it possible to be a revolutionary and like flowers?” by Camille Henrot. Image: busra_erkara via Instagram
New York City’s New Museum always promises compelling exhibitions, and this summer’s lineup is no exception. One of the most critically acclaimed retrospectives taking place there right now is “Camille Henrot: The Restless Earth,” the most expansive exhibition of the artist’s work in the Unite States.
A French artist who now lives and works in New York, Henrot is known for the tremendous amount of care that goes into each work, as well as her natural inclination to delve into multiple disciplines for a single piece. “She has produced a number of visual essays in which she follows intuitive pursuits across disciplines and finds a variety of aesthetic and morphological links between disparate systems of knowledge,” explains the New Museum. “Henrot’s practice combines anthropological research with a staggering range of cultural fragments reflective of the current digital age,” notes the museum of the ways in which Henrot masterfully blends field research with artistic practices.
“Camille Henrot: The Restless Earth” promises an array of work to behold that spans myriad mediums. The exhibition features the artist’s recent videos, drawings, collages, as well as a large installation in which Henrot translates some of her favorite literature into flower arrangements that are site-specific. The latter, titled, “Is it possible to be a revolutionary and like flowers?” is particularly stunning, and offers a different kind of perspective from the artist that the public might not be as acquainted with as her other work.
As Roberta Smith for The New York Times notes, “The Restless Earth” offers not only visually stunning multimedia presentations, but engaging aural delights as well. “Sound is only one of many components that Ms. Henrot weaves into her work, contrasting cultures and times as well as different systems of knowledge, values, and belief,” writes Smith. “Nature and its subjugation are ever-present themes, as are exoticism and colonialism,” she explains, of the ever-present cultural and sociological dialogue that occurs in Henrot’s work.
“Camille Henrot: The Restless Earth” is an exhibition not to be missed this summer at the New Museum. Learn more by visiting www.newmuseum.org.