Philippe Parreno, Invisibleboy, 2010. Via Serpentine Gallery

“I’m best known for my film about Zidane, which showed a super-visible body. After making that it seemed a good idea to make films about someone who doesn’t exist, at least not on paper.” In the Guardian, Philippe Parreno is referring to his most recent video, Invisibleboy currently on view at the Serpentine Gallery. The film depicts the imaginary reality of a young illegal alien in New York’s Chinatown, with the creatures that inhabit the boy’s mind scratched onto the film stock.  Along with three other short video pieces, Invisibleboy is part of Parreno’s highly choreographed exhibition at the Serpentine, which, despite their highly disparate content, are conjoined by Parreno’s use of the exhibition space as an experiential medium. From a Thai compound to Robert Kennedy’s funeral ride, Parreno’s work is highly specific and seemingly unrelated, yet his consideration of time and sequence with regard to the viewer’s experience are the central themes in his body of work. The concept of viewer perception also exists within the narrative of much of his work.

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On March 19, The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture (GCCC) in Moscow celebrated the opening of A Certain State of the World? Highlights from the François Pinault Foundation Collection, an exhibition of international contemporary art from the collection of François Pinault curated by Caroline Bourgeois.  The show includes works -curated along themes of war, the society of spectacle and the globalized world- by thirty three top-ranking artists from North-America, Europe, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia, working with a variety of media.  Amid many noteworthy pieces, visitors can admire Jeff Koons’ famed Hanging Heart (1994-2006). Hanging Heart sold for $23.6 million on auction at Sotheby’s in November 2007 and was first publicly displayed at the inaugural exhibition of François Pinault’s Collection at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.  Other artists included in the exhibition are: Chen Zen, Bill Viola, Francesco Vezzoli, Joana Vasconcelos, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Marion Tampon Lajarriette, Cindy Sherman, Paul Pfeiffer, Philipe Parreno, Takashi Murakami, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Kimsooja, Y.Z. Kami, Pierre Huyghe, Subodh Gupta, Johan Grimonprez, Loris Gréaud, Dan Flavin, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Liu Dahong, Maurizio Cattelan, Cao Fei, Carlos Amorales, Francis Alÿs, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla and Adel Abdessemed.

The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture
A Certain State of the World?
Highlights from the François Pinault Foundation Collection
Obraztsova street 19 A, Moscow
March 20 – June 14, 2009

RELATED LINKS

Gallery Website (in Russian) [The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture]
Interview with Daria Zhukova on the Eve of the Opening Night [Financial Times]
A Review of the Opening Night [Saatchi Gallery]
A Review by The Guardian [The Guardian]
Article on Russian Art World and the GCCC [The Economist]
Article on Daria Zhukova and the Exhibition [The First Post]
Article on Daria Zhukova and the Exhibition [The Times UK]
Exhibition Review [The Moscow Times]

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