Posthuman issues in the 1990s: a rereading through Pierre Huyghe

Abstract

This contribution examines the potential affinities between Pierre Huyghe’s (Antony, 1962) works from the 1990s and the posthuman, a transdisciplinary phenomenon that first garnered canonization in the visual arts in Europe through the group exhibition Post Human (1992), curated by the American critic Jeffrey Deitch. Although the artist did not participate in the exhibition, parallels can be observed between Deitch’s exploration of the interplay between art and mass media and Huyghe’s video works concerning cinema. In this regard, Deitch curated the exhibition Form Follows Fiction (2001), a programmatic continuation of Post Human, in which Huyghe received significant recognition for the video installation The Third Memory (1999). Analyzing the artist’s works from the 1990s through a posthuman lens—echoing a historiographical trend that predominantly addresses works from the 2010s to the present—enables a rediscovery of the pivotal role of mass media within Deitch’s critical discourse, a theme that was already evident in Post Human. This analysis underscores a nuance of the phenomenon that is frequently obscured by transhumanist imagery, which gained more prominence in the posthuman discourse during that decade.