A brush with... Philippe Parreno

Description

Philippe Parreno talks to Ben Luke in depth about his cultural experiences and influences. A master of exhibition-making, Parreno was born in 1964 in Oran, Algeria, but grew up Grenoble in France. Ever since he emerged in the 1990s, he has used the spaces he shows in and the immediate environment around them as an active presence in his work. Architectural elements in the gallery might be animated at certain moments, lighting might flicker according to scores we don’t see, screens might descend to show examples of Philippe’s diverse video works, at unexpected times. Often these actions are triggered by hidden environmental forces that Philippe harnesses as data to orchestrate his shows. He talks about his close network of collaborators, the group shows they put on early in their careers, his interest in science fiction, his new work about Francisco de Goya's Black Paintings, his aim to make a film about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein from the monster's point of view, and the unlikely experience of getting Angus Young from AC/DC to contribute to one of his works. Plus, he responds to the ultimate questions we ask on each podcast: if he could live with just one work of art, what would it be? And, what is art for? This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects.

Links for this episode:

Philippe Parreno at Pilar Corrias

Danny/No More Reality at LUMA Arles

Jaron Lanier, computer scientist, composer, artist and author

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, artist, at Esther Schipper

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

Pier Paolo Pasolini biography on BFI website

Daniel Buren, artist

Peter Plagens on Michael Asher in Artforum in 1972

Goya's Black Paintings in the Museo del Prado

Schatten/Le Montreur d'Ombres/Warning Shadows at IMDb

Fiona Sampson on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at 200