The Question Maker

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Imagine two white doors, so gigantic — nearly 4 m tall — that you feel like Alice in Wonderland. Now think of them dancing on rails through an immense, vacant space, twirling as they go. This is Gates, an installation in French artist Pierre Huyghe's multimedia exhibition "Celebration Park," the show that marked the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris early this year before moving to Tate Modern in London. "Doors are something that define territory, right?" says Huyghe of his metaphor. "But as the doors are moving, and there are no walls, then what is inside and what is outside becomes very blurry."

Huyghe (pronounced, roughly, wheeg) revels in such border bashing. His work in photography, film, music, sculpture, architecture, puppetry, graphics and "events" defies the usual boundaries between the disciplines. And it probes other frontiers: contemporary ones like copyright and community, eternal ones like time and space, image and reality, and, yes, the meaning of art. "Being an artist means asking questions about the reality of existence," says the intense 44-year-old Parisian. He asks a lot of questions.

If that sounds like obscure French philosophy, consider this. In 2004, after Harvard University asked Huyghe for a work to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its visual arts center — the only North American building designed by modernist master Le Corbusier — Huyghe created a puppet show. That's right, marionettes on very visible strings. The idea was to compare the artistic conflicts Le Corbusier had with university authorities — the Mr. Harvard, Dean of Deans puppet is a threatening black specter — with similar problems Huyghe encountered in mounting his show. This is Not a Time for Dreaming is a film of the puppet show that evokes these two parallel experiences. The character Pierre: Artist looks very much like Huyghe, right down to his fashionable beard stubble and white tennis shoes.

Despite winning serious recognition (a special award at the Venice Biennale in 2001, the Hugo Boss Prize in 2002), Huyghe's work has a distinct playfulness. Indeed, the Tate show featured some stand-up comedy performances. For One Year Celebration, Huyghe invited several artists and writers to invent new holidays, and the resulting posters proclaim such whimsical additions to the calendar as Celebrate the Shoelace day (March 21) and &the Creation of the Ampersand day (July 6).

Yet discussing his work in the chic, spare Paris apartment cum think space he shares with graphic designer Francesca Grassi, Huyghe is all seriousness. In explaining that clever calendar, he launches into a discussion of what he calls "time protocols," raising questions about what an exhibition is ("Why should it last 11/2 months — why not 10 years or five seconds?") and what an artist does ("Am I just something that is for people's free time?"). He works hard to convey his ideas, at times folding his slim frame in two as he slides from the sofa to the floor, punctuating his more complex thoughts with "do-you-know-what-I-mean?" said all in one breath.

The time theme really gets him rolling: "Art is not part of the culture. Whether it should be is another big question. But it is part of the mainstream of entertainment." Is an artist then just another worker in the entertainment industry? "If I think that," and Huyghe is not exactly saying he does, "then how can I play with this format?" Warming to his own conclusion, Huyghe says: "He needs to be in the central place of discussion, not be on the side — or else he will be alone."