Courtesy Max Wigram Gallery, London

Marine Hugonnier, detail of "Ernest Dumax’s Secret Cottage" (2008). Two condition reports, each 14 3/4 x 18 1/4 in., presented with "Anonymous, Untitled" ca. 1750. Oil on canvas, 24 3/4 x 20 in.

October 2008 Reviews

Manifesta 7

Jeff Koons

Chantal Akerman

Painting: Now and Forever, Part II

Erkka Nissinen

There is No There There

Elaine Duigenan

Kerry James Marshall

Peter Saul

John Massey

Bridget Riley

Pipilotti Rist

Thomas Helbig

Armando Andrade Tudela

Gary Hume

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

“The Secretary of the Invisible” is an apt title for Marine Hugonnier’s latest exhibition, neatly describing the French artist’s custodial role over particular art objects, concepts, or modes of making, which she deconstructs to reveal how we might be predisposed, culturally or otherwise, to receive them. Large-scale photographs of cloudy blue skies (from her “ITCZ” series of 2007), for example, exemplify the generic appeal of the screen saver or theatrical backdrop; yet also, in representing the atmospheric conditions that cause the (Pacific) Doldrums—a nautical phenomenon and popular literary metaphor— visualize the notion of being between states or territories. Hugonnier’s found oil paintings (Restoration Project, ongoing since 2005), meanwhile, are each (barely perceptibly) restored in ways that temporarily corrupt the original’s physical integrity. These reversible alterations include the addition of an organic-varnish layer—an impossibly light yet radical authorial gesture that changes everything and nothing of the pastoral scene underneath. Finally, the extraordinary 2007 film after which the show is titled appears as straight tribute to, as opposed to critical reframing of, ethnological filmmaker Jean Rouch’s 1955 short The Mad Masters (a powerful docufictional account of a Ghanaian possession cult’s annual ceremony during which members embody the spirits of Colonial rulers). Hugonnier travels along the Niger, planning to make a film in a day with Rouch’s lead actor and sound engineer: en route, she exchanges her radio for an African transformation mask and both she and it become representatives of cultural “other” in a local animist ceremony. While Hugonnier’s version of events can’t be said to expand on Rouch’s theory of the camera as narrative conduit, her personal identification with the subject embroils the viewer in the action, whether they like it or not. "Marine Hugonnier" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' October 2008 Table of Contents.