Camille Henrot is recognized as one of the most influential voices in contemporary art. Over the past 20 years, she has developed a critically acclaimed practice encompassing drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, and film. Informed by a playful research process and inspired by literature, second-hand marketplaces, poetry, cartoons, social media, self-help culture, and the banality of everyday life, Henrot’s work captures the complexity of living as both private individuals and global citizens in an increasingly connected and over-stimulated world.
Camille derived the title for her series Dos and Don'ts, featuring a new suite of large-scale multimedia collage paintings, from a collection of etiquette books that reminded her of an old-fashioned parent with conservative yet well-intentioned ideas. Playing with aspects of flatness and depth, the paintings are comprised of layered collage, spray paint, oil stick, pages from the etiquette books, photographs, and computer-generated images. The piece, The Unselfish Sort, alludes to social anxiety and the omnipresence of digital life. It questions how social behavior is affected when images from advertisements and social media are determined by an algorithmic code.
About the artist
The practice of French artist Camille Henrot moves seamlessly between film, painting, drawing, bronze, sculpture, and installation. Henrot draws upon references from literature, psychoanalysis, social media, cultural anthropology, self-help, and the banality of everyday life in order to question what it means to be both a private individual and a global subject.
Artwork images © ADAGP Camille Henrot. Photo: Thomas Barratt
Portrait © ADAGP Camille Henrot. Photo: Maria Fonti