You don't just find an empty museum and say, "I should do something here." I was looking for another kind of venue or exhibition format. I was trying to find a site where something could happen over a long period of time - something that could slowly transform itself and the place as it went. And I was also trying to stand out of the art-world system. Strangely enough, I stumbled on vacant museum.
Pierre HuygheWith the garden I planted for the Reina Sofia, each plant related to different celebrations along the calendar - Christmas with evergreen trees, Valentine's Day with roses, Halloween with pumpkins. All these symbols are so culturally loaded, but they are organic living entities - just like the fish in the tanks. They grow on their own. The symbolic ecosystem is growing without a narrative anymore. It's a physical and mental landscape.
Pierre HuygheI'm not sure that is correct but I love that interpretation - that we artists never go out of self-portrait.
Pierre HuygheYou can go to a psychoanalyst one day and then go the next day and something else will come out. So, yes, there was some preparation. But still, when a person gets hypnotized, you don't really know what the outcome will be.
Pierre HuygheWhen I know who is speaking, I see that there is a commitment. I need to know there is some commitment. I need to find an author. "I" can also be polyphonic, fictional, inhabited by a multitude of characters, be right or wrong or at fault or corrupted. But that's more "the self" than "me, me, me." It's problematic. There are times to say "we."
Pierre Huyghe