Camille Henrot (born 1978) is a French artist who lives and works in New York. Her work includes video installation, sculpture, drawing, and assemblage.
The political cartoon, in a way, is one of the highest forms of expression about our times. I don't believe in dramatic statements when it comes to political critique. It doesn't communicate in a way that's subversive enough.
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.
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 think art must be the place where you are protected from the logic of the outside world.
For me, it would be very difficult to express an opinion about our times without humor. I don't think you could do that.
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.
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.
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.
Daily life is both the subject and environment of the work I am making.
Is it possible to be a revolutionary and like flowers?
Art has to maintain as large a space for interpretation as possible, and to protect itself from being too narrow.
Religion is in every aspect of art, when it's not baroque.
I want to experiment with new techniques and become a "traditional baroque artist. "
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.
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.
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.
Ikebana is meant to mimic life in the way it develops; it shouldn't look like it's under the control of man.
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.
What I like about baroque is the reemergence of pre-Christian religion. The art of baroque mixes ancient pre-Christian myths with Christian imagery and each reflects upon the other.
One of my assistants was on Instagram and showed me how it was working. I thought it was playful, the way you go through images, a little like cinema. It's a bit like a filmstrip that's animated by your finger.