Philippe Parreno
Philippe Parreno produces a protean and often ephemeral body of work that questions the formats of exhibitions and the nature of images.
Speaking to the Penguins
Cahiers d’Art invited him for two exhibitions in 2014: one curated by Parreno himself, and the other presenting his work curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist. For the exhibitions, Parreno created two photographic works, both entitled Speaking to the Penguins.
These photographs are the result of an action in which Philippe Parreno talks to a colony of penguins at night on a Patagonian beach. The penguin is an animal that never lives alone, but always in a group. Inspired by «After Affect58», a series of texts published in the Italian magazine Domus on man’s relationship with nature and the urban landscape, Philippe Parreno decided to talk to the motif instead of painting it. In this work, Parreno’s aim is to recount an the experience of managing to communicate with a community of animals.