Travel Tip: Art and Archaeology in Spain
Pierre Huyghe: La saison des fêtes

The Palacio de Cristal was inaugurated in 1887 with an exhibition of the flora of the Philippines, Spain’s pre-eminent colony at that time. Conceived specifically for the crystal palace  (now dedicated to art projects commissioned by the Museo Reina Sofia), Pierre Huyghe’s La saison des fêtes, is loosely framed by the site’s history and former functions. Whereas the impulses behind the original displays of luxuriant tropical plants were informed by a colonialist ideology Huyghe’s work, by contrast, attempts to stand outside a strictly Eurocentric position. The visionary landscape which occupies the center of the luminous pavilion has a circular footprint, perhaps in reference to the Earth’s spherical profile, perhaps an allusion to a time piece - like a clock face - marking the cyclical flow of days, months and seasons. The plants that comprise this landscape are those associated with festivals and celebrations familiar across the world – red roses for Valentine’s day, pumpkins for Halloween, cherry blossom marking the arrival of spring. Huyghe hopes that in this utopian cosmos they might all come into flower at the same moment (sometime during the course of the exhibition); as they amalgamate disparate dates strewn intermittently across the annual calendar into one composite festival – “a bouquet of anniversaries” – people from all parts of the world might gather together to make common cause.

Born in Paris in 1962, Huyghe graduated from the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris in 1985. He has had major solo shows in a number of institutions including the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, París, 2000; Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2002, Austria, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2003; Dia:Chelsea, New York, 2003; MUSAC, León, Spain, 2007. He currently lives and works in New York City.