Pierre Huyghe

The most recent video work by acclaimed contemporary artist Pierre Huyghe, Human Mask (2014)—a mesmerizing and disconcerting 19-minute film—responds to a YouTube clip entitled Fuku-chan Monkey in wig, mask, works Restaurant!, depicting an actual incident in which a monkey—outfitted with the mask of a young girl—was trained to work as a waitress at a restaurant in Fukushima, Japan. Following the nuclear disaster in 2011, Huyghe used a drone camera to scale the site’s wreckage and to document scenes of the monkey alone in its habitat, silhouetted against a dark and empty restaurant interior. In this dystopian setting, the monkey acts out the human condition as she endlessly repeats her unconscious role, highlighting the artist’s ongoing exploration of the relationship between animals and humans.

The exhibition is curated by Rita Kersting, Landeau Family Curator of Contemporary Art.