Marguerite Humeau’s work stages the crossing of great distances in time and space, transitions between animal and mineral, and encounters between personal desires and natural forces. The work explores the possibility of communication between worlds and the means by which knowledge is generated in the absence of evidence or through the impossibility of reaching the object of investigation. Marguerite Humeau weaves factual events into speculative narratives, therefore enabling unknown, invisible, or extinct forms of life to erupt in grandiose splendour. Combining prehistory, occult biology and science fiction in a disconcerting spectacle – the works resuscitate the past, conflate subterranean and subcutaneous, all the while updating the quest genre for the information age.

Marguerite Humeau (b. 1986, FR) lives and works in London, UK. She received her MA from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2011. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Tate Britain, London, UK; New Museum, New York; Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich, CH; Kunstverein in Hamburg, DE; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, DE; Nottingham Contemporary, UK; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR; and C L E A R I N G, New York, USA. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including the High Line, New York, USA; Château de Versailles, FR; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK; Serpentine Gallery, London, UK; Victoria and Albert Museum, Sculpture Gallery, London, UK; and FRAC Midi- Pyrénées,Toulouse, FR. Humeau is nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2019.

Part of series of MVS Proseminar talks related to The Drowned World for the Toronto Biennial of Art in which Humeau was an exhibiting artist. 

Image Credits:

Title: Echo, A matriarch engineered to die, exhibition view, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
MATERIALS: Polystyrene, white paint, acrylic parts, latex, silicone, nylon, glass artificial
heart, water pumps, water, potassium chloride, powder-coated metal stand, sound
SIZE: W 120,2 x L 449,6 x H 136,1 cm (including stand)+GlassHeart W30xL60xH30cm
Year: 2016Image Credit: Spassky Fischer
Courtesy the artist, C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels