Parallel Presents

Over the past two decades, French artist Pierre Huyghe has produced an extraordinary body of work in constant dialogue with temporality. Investigating the possibility of a hypothetical mode of timekeeping--parallel presents-- Huyghe has researched the architecture of the incomplete, directed a puppet opera, founded a temporary school, established a pirate television station, staged celebrations, scripted scenarios, and journeyed to Antarctica in search of a mythological penguin. In this first book-length art historical examination of Huyghe and his work, Amelia Barikin traces the artists continual negotiation with the time codes of contemporary society. Barikin offers pioneering analyses of Huyghes lesser-known early works as well as sustained readings of later, critically acclaimed projects, including No Ghost Just a Shell (2000), LExpédition scintillante (2002), and A Journey That Wasnt (2005). She emphasizes Huyghes concepts of freed time and the open present, in which anything might happen.