Born in 1978, Camille Henrot graduated from the Ecole des Art Décoratif in Paris. She now lives and works in New York. Best-known for her videos and animated films combining drawn art, music and occasionally scratched or reworked cinematic images, Camille Henrot’s works blur the traditionally hierarchical categories of art history.
Her works consider the fascination with the “other” and “elsewhere” in terms of geography and sexuality. This encounter’s fascination is reflected in popular modern myths that have inspired her, such as King Kong and Frankenstein. She enjoys not being in full control and mastering a field, which stems from her unbound curiosity, which forms the core of her practice.
Fairy Tales was a video art festival at the Plaza of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan.
Artists: Lida Abdul, Said Atabekov, Mohamed Bourouissa, Chen Chieh-Jen, Cao Fei, Yang Fudong, Cyprien Gaillard, Dejan Kaludjerović, Mari Kim, Kamin Lertchaiprasert, Taus Makhacheva, Almagul Menlibayeva, Mariko Mori, Ahmet Ögüt, Adrian Paci, Public Delivery, Wang Qingsong, Walid Raad, Cheng Ran, China & Item Idem, Taps & Moses, Guido van der Werve, Erwin Wurm, Miao Xiaochun
Exhibited: The Strife of Love in a Dream, 2011
The video opens with psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar’s line that ‘India is the unconsciousness of the West’ was commissioned by the Centre Pompidou’s show “Paris-Delhi-Bombay” in 2011.
Mixing shots from across India and France, the video dresses scenes of Shiva-worshipping pilgrims at Annamalaiyar Temple in Tamil Nadu, with workers sorting through hundreds and thousands of Atarax strips, a pill used to appease anxiety and cure allergies, as well as snake bites.
Over the 11 minutes, she references the fascination and fear of snakes across eastern and western myths, inspired from Adam and Eve to Medusa or Hermes’ Caduceus in the pharmaceutical world.
Through such images and symbols, she portrays a universalism, highlighting similarities over contextualization and specific historical, economic or cultural conditions that would influence behaviors.
