French artist Camille Henrot lives and works between New York and Paris. Partly known as the “anthropological artist” because of the influence of this subject on her own art, Camille has been producing all sorts of media since 2001, after graduating from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Today we remember one of her most singular exhibitions.
In today's world, where art production is bigger and faster than ever and artists struggle to be more than a one-hit wonder, it's almost surprising to find one with such a long and consistent body of work as Camille Henrot. She's held exhibitions in prestigious museums such as the Pompidou Centre and the Tate Modern and won the Silver Lion at last year's Venice Biennale for her video Grosse Fatigue, in which bits of the myth of creation of several different cultures overlapped images from the archives of the Smithsonian Institution. Her body of work flows in many different directions, combining all the elements at hand to create unclassifiable art.
After experimenting with so many artistic languages, Camille turned to the language of flowers. Her exhibition Is it possible to be a revolutionary and like flowers? was an exercise of ikebana, through which she translated books such as The fetishistic nature of consumer goods. It is certainly not something most people would say just by looking at these pieces, but even to the uninformed eye something bold strikes at the gaze of these wild bouquets. The engaging beauty of flowers transforms into something deeper as the shapes and colours develop. Beauty is a form of genius.
