What's Up On Monday According to Camille Henrot
- Flavia Catarinelli
- 3 giu 2016
- Tempo di lettura: 2 min
Camille Henrot, A Long Face, fresco, 2016, Fondazione Memmo, Rome. Courtesy of Fondazione Memmo.
What does Monday mean for you? Of course, it’s the beginning of the week, a working day, and almost everyone may link Mondays with daily routine. However, the French artist Camille Henrot (Paris, 1978) found a way to use a simple day as an allegory of life and as a source of contradictions. What are Mondays really? Are they just a series of normal moments in our daily life, like shaving and going to work, or something else?
Camille Henrot literally puts on the walls, through frescoes, a reflection on all the possibilities and meanings that the simple beginning of the week may have. Monday can represent sadness and tiredness for a new week, but also hope, innovation, and change.
The entire exhibition is based on bronze sculptures, which tend to be abstract, and allegorical, colorful frescoes, and an installation, entitled May 2016: Horoscope. Indeed, this artwork is the fulcrum of the entire exhibit. In one artwork, Camille is able to unify routine and evolution, automatic actions and the fantastical, human and animal worlds. This rotating carousel of anthropomorphic animals is the perfect synthesis, not only of the exhibition, but also of Henrot’s inspirations; be they animals or mythological figures.
Camille Henrot, Derelitta, bronze, 2016, Fondazione Memmo, Rome. Courtesy of Fondazione Memmo.
“Monday” continuously hits the viewer’s emotions and curiosity through visual contrasts. For instance, the light and peaceful colors of the frescoes are in apparent discordance with the images themselves, representing a large span of emotions, like rage or sadness, and explicit sexuality and violence. This controversy is perfectly visible in the fresco Long Face (2016), in which sadness is represented through a distorted face crying over two glasses, filled with tears. However, such a dramatic experience appears paradoxically beautiful and peaceful, as if this sadness is so part of our daily life so as to not be felt as strongly anymore.
However, Camille Henrot also deals with more common experiences, like the simple act of waking up. Obviously, on Monday everyone has to go to work or study. The bronze sculpture Derelitta (2016) represents the moment in which we understand with desperation that the day must begin. The almost abstract figure is reclining, recalling Renaissance Venuses and Classic sculpture.
Camille Henrot’s exhibit is a truly fun, interactive, and interesting experience, which leads to reflection and can be appreciated by contemporary art lovers or novices who do not always appreciate or experience a contemporary approach to art.
So, guys, what’s up on Monday?
Monday Camille Henrot
Fondazione Memmo
May 11th, 2016 – November 6th, 2016
Address: ia Fontanella Borghese 56b, Rome
Free Entrance
Info: artecontemporanea@fondazionememmo.it
Opening hours: Wednesday – Monday 12:00-19:00
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