PIERRE HUYGHE CELEBRATES THE CARPENTER CENTER IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE 40th ANNIVERSARY OF LE CORBUSIER'S ONLY NORTH AMERICAN BUILDING
Huyghe + Corbusier: Harvard Project
Opens at Harvard's Carpenter Center November 18, 2004
CAMBRIDGE, MA (August 19, 2004)- Pierre Huyghe will create a multi-media project for Harvard University as part of an inter-faculty collaboration among the Harvard University Art Museums, the Harvard Design School, and Harvard's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. Huyghe + Corbusier: Harvard Project will explore Le Corbusier's vision for Harvard's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, the only building in North America designed by the noted architect and home to the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. The project will premiere at the Carpenter Center on November 18, 2004, and will continue in the building's Sert Gallery through April 17, 2005.
Huyghe + Corbusier: Harvard Project will include multiple components that respond to the design history of the Carpenter Center and its relationship to Harvard:
- A "puppet opera" telling the story of Le Corbusier's commission and Huyghe's own work at Harvard, which will feature custom-crafted marionettes of Le Corbusier and others;
- A temporary architectural extension, designed by Huyghe in collaboration with faculty and students from the Harvard Design School, which will transform the Carpenter Center's covered terrace into a theater for the puppet opera;
- A new film by Huyghe, based on the puppet opera, which will be screened continuously in the Carpenter Center's Sert Gallery.
Organized by the Fogg Art Museum's Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, the project grew from Huyghe's long-standing interest in Le Corbusier's work and his central role within the history of modern architecture. Huyghe + Corbusier: Harvard Project is the Fogg Art Museum's first single-artist initiative of this scale, and it underscores the Harvard University Art Museums' commitment to the study, teaching, and presentation of modern and contemporary art. The project also furthers the Art Museums' role in fostering interdepartmental collaboration among Harvard scholars.
Huyghe began work on the project two and a half years ago. Over the past year he conducted workshops with students from Harvard's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and the Harvard Design School. In addition, he undertook a review of Harvard's Le Corbusier archives. Huyghe + Corbusier: Harvard Project further developed from dialogue with project curators Linda Norden, associate curator of contemporary art at the Fogg Art Museum, and Scott Rothkopf, senior editor of Artforum and a Ph.D. candidate in the department of History of Art and Architecture. Through this research and collaboration with Harvard students and scholars, Huyghe gained insight into the radical nature of the Carpenter Center's architecture in the context of the greater University campus. While exploring Le Corbusier's designs and working with the students at the Center, Huyghe also experienced the space as a laboratory for creativity and a catalyst for the making and exploration of art at Harvard.
"This interdisciplinary initiative adds a special dimension to the experiences Harvard students have with projects marked by great creative energy and intensive research," said Thomas Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. "The Harvard University Art Museums are dedicated not only to presenting modern and contemporary art, but also to teaching and researching these areas according to the Art Museums' great traditions of close interaction with works of art and scholarship. Giving students the opportunity to work directly with a living artist while exploring one of this continent's greatest architectural treasures is a potent 21st century expression of that legacy."
Puppet Opera
Huyghe's twenty-minute puppet opera, a fanciful recounting of the story of the Carpenter Center's conception and construction, will be performed on November 18. The opera will be staged using custom-crafted marionettes playing the parts of Le Corbusier and other key figures involved in the creation of the building. Huyghe will interweave the narrative of these historical characters with marionettes of himself and other contemporary figures, melding past and present. The puppet opera will reveal the parallels between Le Corbusier's creation of a home for the arts at Harvard and Huyghe's task of creating a site-specific project within the building.
Architectural Extension
Huyghe's puppet opera will be performed within a temporary architectural extension to the Carpenter Center designed in collaboration with Harvard Design School faculty member Michael Meredith. The theater will take the form of a "moss covered shell" emerging from beneath a below-grade space defined by the center's covered terrace-drawing attention to the building's design while subtly changing it. By transforming a largely unused outdoor space into the site of a theatrical event with a stage for the marionettes and audience seating, the extension will add a new function to a building designed for multiple artistic uses. The extension will be taken down following the November 18 performance.
Film
The puppet opera will serve as the basis for a major new film by Huyghe. Performed once prior to the November 18 opening, the puppet opera will be filmed with multiple cameras, then enhanced by post-production special effects. Huyghe will also incorporate footage of the Carpenter Center and Harvard into the film. The completed film will premiere in the Center's subterranean auditorium on November 18, and the live puppet opera and film will be shown in alteration several times during the evening.
The film will then become the centerpiece of a multimedia installation in the Center's third-floor Sert Gallery. It will be screened continuously throughout the project's run, and will be the primary documentation of Huyghe's groundbreaking work at Harvard after the project ends.
"Huyghe + Corbusier: Harvard Project explores the rich history, startling design, and wide-ranging functions of a building that has long captivated Huyghe's imagination," said Norden. "Through his response to Le Corbusier's architectural vision, Huyghe illuminates the full scale of possibilities within the Center, expands its role as a creative catalyst, and sparks the exchange of new ideas across University disciplines."
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Completed in 1963, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is the home of Harvard's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and the only building in North America designed by Le Corbusier. The five levels of the building function as open and flexible working spaces, and a ramp through the heart of the building encourages public circulation and provides views into art studios, making the creative process visible through the building's design.
The Center includes the Sert Gallery, programmed with contemporary art by the Harvard University Art Museums, and a lobby gallery that hosts a variety of initiatives supporting the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies' curriculum. Along with the Harvard Film Archive, the Carpenter Center offers a full schedule of temporary exhibitions; symposia and lectures on the practice and experience of art; traditional and computer-based printmaking and publishing facilities; metal and woodworking shops; painting and sculpture studios; facilities for sound recording, mixing, and re-recording student films and videos; and demonstrations, performances, and installations by visiting artists representing a variety of traditional and experimental media.
Pierre Huyghe
Pierre Huyghe uses a wide range of forms, including sculpture, film, architecture, and photography, to explore the nature of imagination and its role in shaping narratives and impacting reality. His art includes the orchestration of acted and processional real-time events and film installations that document these performances. Huyghe's work at the Carpenter Center is in the spirit of earlier "remakes" such as The Third Memory, based on Al Pacino's Dog Day Afternoon and the much-publicized bank robbery that precipitated Pacino's movie. It also echoes his innovative renovation of a former Parisian butcher shop into a trendy café just behind the Pompidou Center. In each of these works, Huyghe uses the well-known elements of a cultural icon to critically examine its identity. In each case, he is as likely to ask what a work did not become as how it came to be.
Huyghe is the recipient of the 2002 Hugo Boss Prize from the Guggenheim Museum, and his work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the following museums and festivals: Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2002); the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Amsterdam (2001); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2000); the 2001 Venice Biennale; and the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh (1999), among others. Huyghe was born in 1962 in Paris and currently lives in New York. He is at work on projects in Europe, China, and several American cities.
Project Sponsors
This project is made possible through the generosity of Marian Goodman; Frances and John Bowes; Étant-Donnés, the French-American Fund for Contemporary Art; the LEF Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; the Graham Gund Exhibition Fund; the José Soriano Fund; and the Anthony and Celeste Meier Exhibitions Fund.
About the Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums are one of the world's leading arts institutions, with the Arthur M. Sackler, Busch-Reisinger, and Fogg art museums, the Straus Center for Conservation, and the U.S. headquarters for the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, an excavation project in western Turkey.
The Harvard University Art Museums are distinguished by the range and depth of their collections, their groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of their staff. As an integral part of the Harvard community, the three art museums serve as a resource for all students, adding a special dimension to their areas of study. The public is welcome to experience the collections and exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs.
For more than a century, the Harvard University Art Museums have been the nation's premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars and are renowned for their role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country.
Location and Hours
The Fogg Art Museum and the Busch-Reisinger Museum are located at 32 Quincy Street in Cambridge. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum is located next door at 485 Broadway. Each Museum is a short walk from the Harvard Square MBTA station.
Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sunday 1 - 5 p.m.; the Museums are closed on national holidays. Admission is $6.50; $5 for seniors; $5 for students; and free for those under 18 years of age. The Museums are free to everyone Saturday mornings, 10 a.m. - noon. The Harvard University Art Museums receive support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. More detailed information is available at 617-495-9400 or on the Internet at www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.
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For more information on this appointment or the Harvard University Art Museums, please contact:
Matthew Barone
Harvard University Art Museums
tel 617-495-2397; fax 617-496-9762
mbarone@fas.harvard.edu
or
Kim Gilbert/Casey Barber
Resnicow Schroeder Associates
tel 212-671-5157; fax 212-595-8354
kgilbert@resnicowschroeder.com
cbarber@resnicowschroeder.com