Camille Henrot didn’t plan to be an artist. She began her career in advertising but quickly realized it was too rigid, lacking space for nuance and ambivalence. So she started making her own experimental films on the kitchen table, drawing on old 35mm film. “I think ultimately I wanted to become a film director, but the classic narrative, theater-inspired model of cinema wasn’t very interesting for me,” Camille Henrot reflects.
This search for nuance and duality is central to Camille Henrot’s artistic philosophy. In her works, she deliberately disrupts rigid systems of knowledge and control in order to leave space for interpretation and alternative meanings.
“I try to protect, very ferociously, the space for interpretation,” she explains, emphasizing her desire to challenge viewers to engage with her work beyond surface-level understanding.
A recurring theme in Henrot’s work is the intersection between private and public spheres and how our personal problems are increasingly intertwined with technology. Thus, in works like “System of Attachment” and “Wet Job,” Camille Henrot explores institutional structures and societal expectations of motherhood and caregiving roles.
“I think there’s something with the hyper-personal; the things that seem the most personal, the most subjective, and the most anecdotal resonate globally. Because in the end, the depths of our inner lives are also what connects us to other people. Yet the things that mostly appear as commonalities are also the most divisive and complex because the things we all share are also the things we all have an opinion on. And so there are interesting areas of investigation for me because they are constantly unresolved. They are topics that leave an open space for interpretation and opinions, which is something I’m always interested in.”
Camille Henrot (b. 1978, France) lives and works in New York City. Her practice spans drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, and film, with her works exploring themes from literature and psychoanalysis to digital culture. In 2013, as a fellow at the Smithsonian Institute, she created her critically acclaimed film Grosse Fatigue, for which she was awarded the Silver Lion at the 55th Venice Biennale. The following year, she received the Nam June Paik Award, and in 2015, she was given the Edvard Munch Award. Henrot has had numerous solo exhibitions worldwide, including at the Middelheim Museum in Belgium; National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; New Museum in New York; Schinkel Pavilion in Berlin; New Orleans Museum of Art; Fondazione Memmo in Rome; and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in Japan, among others.
Camille Henrot was interviewed by Nanna Rebekka in her studio in Manhattan in May 2023.
Editor and producer: Nanna Rebekka
Camera: Sean Hanley
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2023.
Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond, Ny Carlsbergfondet, C.L. Davids Fond og Samling and Fritz Hansen
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