Pierre Huyghe Presentation of the film "The Host and the Cloud"

Shot over three days of performance (Day of the Dead, Valentine’s Day and May Day), The Host and the Cloud follows the adventures of a group of actors in the abandoned building of a former French museum, the Musée national des arts et traditions populaires in Paris. The empty museum becomes a dream ecosystem inhabited by real and imaginary characters who indulge in a series of rituals: a trial, a coronation and a parade. The film is part of a larger research process in which Pierre Huyghe works with cultural biotopes (from the aquarium to the museum) and reflects on the social rituals of production and representation of life. Halfway between farce, exorcism and political fiction, between theatrical action and improvisation, the film questions our protocols for the production of meaning, decontextualising and repeating the social ceremonies that legitimise them. Myths become images for the cultural industry, the museum a fair in which myths are consumed. As Jean Baudrillard says: ‘Huyghe’s strength lies in his understanding ... [that] images have become masks for universal media ventriloquism.’

Screening times of The Host and the Cloud
Length: 121 min 30 s
Weekdays: 11.15 am; 13.15 pm; 15.20 pm; 17.20 pm
Saturdays: 10.15 am; 12.20 pm; 14.25 pm; 14.15 pm; 16.30 pm; 18.35 pm
Sundays and holidays: 10.15 am; 12.20 pm

Pierre Huyghe (born 1962, Paris) lives and works in Paris and New York. He has had numerous international solo exhibitions at such venues as the Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2014) and the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013–14). He has also participated in a number of international art shows, including Documenta 11 (2002), 13 (2012); the Istanbul Biennial (1999); the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1999); Manifesta 2, Luxembourg (1998); the 2nd Johannesburg Biennial (1997); and the Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (1995). He has received a number of awards, including a DAAD in Berlin (1999–2000), the Hugo Boss Prize, Guggenheim Museum (2002), the Smithsonian Museum’s Contemporary Artist Award (2010) and the Roswitha Haftmann Award (2013).

Première 28 April. Screening from 30 April to 12 May 2014.
The Host and the Cloud (2009) by Pierre Huyghe. Film transferred to HD video, colour, sound, 121 min 30 s. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris