Camille Henrot (born 1978) is a French artist who lives and works in New York. Her work includes video installation, sculpture, drawing, and assemblage.
In a way, the political cartoon drawings are things that are small and have humor and a childhood aesthetic and are often stronger to spread an opinion.
I'm interested in making works for museums in a way that make the space feel domestic, and I'm always thinking about how this work will be part of someone's daily life.
I know that Instagram belongs to Facebook, so I cannot really stand on a political pedestal and say, "I'm against Facebook!" But I haven't wanted to be on Facebook from the beginning.
When I think about the reference to baroque, I'm most interested in how art was integrated into domestic life. That's why I like fresco, because fresco is part of the wall. It's art, but it's decoration at the same time.
I'm spending a lot of time in the Palazzo and in the museums. I'm printing [pictures that I take] and making a binder with a mix of internet research and palazzo research that I'm planning to use for the upcoming works.
I felt like if I was on Facebook, I would probably spend my days looking at people's profiles, seeing what they do, and feeling bad about not working enough.
In fact, the underlying principle of the baroque is the idea of transformation, of movement, and animals becoming man, and man becoming animals, and mythology. It was a way to inspire pre-Christian character.
Basically, art should remain something that is complex, that has many layers, so there's always a possibility to reconsider things and have a different perspective. It's not just an advertisement with one single message that has some authority, political or not.
Baroque sculpture and interior design has a quality of creating an environment that seems organic because it's full of curves and details, like a forest.
I'm working on new techniques. I'm trying to find a way to make fresco that can be detached from a wall, and I'm trying to find new people who can help me work on a very large scale in bronze.
I think my work is about the different strategies man has invented to deal with desire, frustration, fear of death, exhaustion. It's very much about life on earth.
Ikebana is meant to mimic life in the way it develops; it shouldn't look like it's under the control of man.
For me, it's really important that the experience of art is always something that is able to provoke strong emotion, an emotion that you feel in your heart or your stomach, but also that challenges the brain at the same time. It's an experience - physical and intellectual.
Religion is in every aspect of art, when it's not baroque.
For me, it would be very difficult to express an opinion about our times without humor. I don't think you could do that.
Whether I'm at home and researching online or whether I'm in the studio just drawing, I think I'm more interested in practical research - discussing with other people, trying to find the exact formula of putting things on the canvas, what is the consistency of paint that works best.
Art has to maintain as large a space for interpretation as possible, and to protect itself from being too narrow.
Daily life is both the subject and environment of the work I am making.
I think art must be the place where you are protected from the logic of the outside world.
In the traditional Ikebana things always have to be asymmetrical, because in this they look more natural and balanced.