* 1978 in Paris, lives and works in New York, US
Camille Henrot’s work takes a felt, human perspective on an age of rapid automation. Her Office of Unreplied Emails created in collaboration with Jacob Bromberg, is a hand-written presentation of sympathetic, over-emotive, and personal responses to one hundred unanswered messages in Henrot’s inbox. These emails come from stores or activist groups whose causes the artist has previously supported by donating money or signing a petition. Henrot’s proposed responses, written in an exaggerated calligraphy, are a reaction to the senders’ overwrought tone (“Camille, I need you before midnight!”). They ask whether protection from emotional appeals is necessary or unethical and how we negotiate the relationship between individual suffering and the macroscopic problems of the world. 11 Animals that Mate 4 Life is part of an ongoing series that derives from a Mother Nature Network online slideshow with the same title. Tagged “Valentine’s Day,” the feature demonstrates both an absurd personification of nature and our seemingly unnatural expectations of faithfulness, animalism, or wildness in human relationships.
List of works
Office of Unreplied Emails, 2016
Prints on silicone
Courtesy Camille Henrot; KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin
Installation view of Office of Unreplied Emails, 2016; courtesy Camille Henrot; KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin; photo: Timo Ohler; © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016
Installation view of Office of Unreplied Emails, 2016; courtesy Camille Henrot; KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin; photo: Timo Ohler; © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016
11 Animals that Mate 4 Life, 2016
Fresco, steel
Courtesy Camille Henrot; KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin, kamel mennour, Paris
All works commissioned and coproduced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
With the support of KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin; Fondazione Memmo Arte Contemporaneo, Rome; Bureau des arts plastiques des Institut français und des französischen Ministeriums für Kultur und Kommunikation
