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➤Marguerite Humeau a circular piece of land as an access to the nets of spacetime II (extraction pipes), 2024, Pigments and water on paper and zinc-passivated stainless-steel frame, Photo © White Cube (David Westwood)
Marguerite Humeau–DUST
The works featured in ''DUST'' continue a line of inquiry originating in Humeau’s major land artwork ‘Orisons’ (2023), which takes place in a single 160-acre fallow crop circle in Colorado’s San Luis Valley. In so doing, ‘Orisons’ situates one artist’s concerns within the greater scheme of the persistence and resilience of life, between the rolling sand dunes driven by a consistent eastward wind, the drama of the horizon and expansive open sky, the remains of animal bones and nomadic weeds. In recognition of this unique site teeming with life and layered histories, Humeau sought to devise an ephemeral artistic intervention that would at the same time celebrate the land as artwork in and of itself.
➤ Marguerite Humeau a circular piece of land as an access to the nets of spacetime III (the disappearance of the bird and double rainbow), 2024, Pigments and water on paperand zinc-passivated stainless-steel frame, Photo by © White Cube (David Westwood)
For ''DUST'', Humeau has created a series of intricate sculptures that visualise the activation points of ‘Orisons’ as spacetime portals. Through compositions that combine an array of materials – including copper wire, bronze and glass, unglazed terracotta, onyx and organza – the complexly enmeshed histories of ‘Orisons’ take three-dimensional form. Works such as release of gravity, extraction pipes, the twist and the guardian of Earth migrations (all 2024) describe this with sweeping curves and ascending coils, and tumid, clustered threads suggestive of roiling masses of energy. Funnelling upwards in cyclonic formation, their forms invoke the scientific modelling of elemental forces, as well as art historical depictions of the spiritual.
➤ Marguerite Humeau From _Orisons_ by Marguerite Humeau curated and produced by Black Cube A Nomadic Art Museum 2023 (medium res)
➤ Marguerite Humeau From _Orisons_ by Marguerite Humeau curated and produced by Black Cube A Nomadic Art Museum 2023 (medium res)
Developed in tandem with the sculptures, a suite of works on paper engage with whirling, centrifugal energies through layers of watered-down pigment. Titled ‘a circular landscape as an access to the nets of spacetime’, this new series of works on paper offers another means by which the artist has visualised unseen presences. Evoking diverse techniques of image-making, such as spirit photography or automatic drawing, Humeau once more endeavours to render visible that which cannot be seen, positing that intuition and memory can be inscribed through the gestural marking of paper. The final component of the exhibition are photographs taken by Julia Andréone and Florine Bonaventure at the site of ‘Orisons’ during the artist’s time there, some printed in large format and others small. This play with scale draws our attention to the way in which life forms are dwarfed by the immensity of their environments, linking the great temporal cycles that engender life to humbler phenomena, whether human, soil or dust.
➤ From ‘Orisons’ by Marguerite Humeau, curated and produced by Black Cube, A Nomadic Art, C-type print on paper and zinc-passivated stainless-steel frame. Photography by Julia Andréone and Florine Bonaventure
Marguerite Humeau (b.1986, Cholet, France) lives and works in London. She received her MA from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2011. Humeau’s work was included in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Cecilia Alemani and the 23rd Biennale of Sydney (both 2022). In 2023, Humeau created the 160-acre earthwork ‘Orisons’ in San Luis Valley, Colorado, one of the largest earthworks ever produced by a solo female artist. It was curated and produced by Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum, headquartered in Denver.
➤ Marguerite Humeau From Orisons by Marguerite Humeau curated and produced by Black Cube A Nomadic Art Museum 2023 (medium res)
➤ Marguerite Humeau, dead skins, 2024. Handblown glass with metal inserts and zinc-passivated steel. Photo by © White Cube (Theo Christelis)
➤ From '' Orisons '' by Marguerite Humeau, curated and produced by Black Cube, A Nomadic Art, 2023, Giclée print on paper and zinc-passivated stainless-steel frame. Photography by Julia Andréone and Florine Bonaventure
➤ From '' Orisons '' by Marguerite Humeau, curated and produced by Black Cube, A Nomadic Art, 2023. Giclée print on paper and zinc-passivated stainless-steel frame. Photography by Julia Andréone and Florine Bonaventure
➤ Marguerite Humeau the guardian of Earth migrations 2024. Photo by © White Cube (Theo Christelis)
➤ Marguerite Humeau, extraction pipes, 2024. Photo by © White Cube (Theo Christelis)
➤ Marguerite Humeau, the twist
