Philippe Parreno

Lives and works in Paris, France.
A key artist of his generation, Philippe Parreno has radically redefined the exhibition experience by taking it as a medium and placing its construction at the heart of his process.

Philippe Parreno studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Grenoble from 1983 until 1988 and at the Institut des Hautes Etudes en arts plastiques at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris from 1988 until 1989.

Working in a diverse range of media including film, sculpture, drawing, and text, Parreno conceives his exhibitions as a scripted space where a series of events unfold. He seeks to transform the exhibition visit into a singular experience that plays with spatial and temporal boundaries and the sensory experience of the visitor. For the artist, the exhibition is less a total work of art than a necessary interdependence that offers an ongoing series of open possibilities.

Often described as “immersive”, Parreno’s exhibitions introduce each precise element (a light sculpture, a film, a piece of music) that enforce the durational aspect of the exhibition asking the viewer to slow down, at times to sit down, and concentrate on each particular work, ultimately bringing each individual element into relation with another.

Parreno’s permanent gallery space in Frank Gehry’s Arts Resource Centre offers two exhibition spaces set in one another – Danny (2021) and No More Reality (2021). Danny is an urban space that came alive and is capable of living and perceiving the world, conceived as a multi-part automaton that lives and moves in response to live data culled from its surroundings. Conceived as a second exhibition space, No More Reality brings together ten of Parreno’s films, previously known as Anywhere (2001), June 8th 1968 (2009), Invisible Boy (2010), C.H.Z. (2011) Marilyn (2012) The Crowd, (2015) Li Yan (2016) Anywhen, (2016), Owl in Daylight (2020), and Goya, (2021) to form a single coherent narrative.

Parreno has presented solo exhibitions at Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (2022), Bourse de Commerce, Paris (2022), Fondation Beyeler (2021), Luma Arles (2021). Watari-Um, Tokyo (2019); Gropius Bau, Berlin (2018); Jumex, Mexico City (2017); The Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2017); Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2017); ACMI, Melbourne (2016/17); HangarBicocca, Milan (2015/2016), Park Avenue Armory, New York (2015); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014/2013); CAC Malaga (2014); Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2013); Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel (2012); Serpentine Gallery, London (2010-2011); Centre for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York (2009–10); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2009–10); Kunsthalle Zürich (2009) and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2009).  

Parreno’s work is represented in numerous major museum collections, including Tate, London; MoMA, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Kanazawa Museum of the 21st Century, Japan; Musée d’Art Modern de la Ville de Paris, Paris; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. His work was also presented at the Venice Biennale (1993, 1995, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2015, and 2017), Venice Biennale of Architecture (2014), Lyon Biennale (1997, 2003, and 2005), and Istanbul Biennial (2001).

In 2024, he participated in the collective exhibition Coming Soon at Lafayette Anticipations, Paris.

/