Museum as Menagerie: Networks of Agency and Displays of Voyeurism in Pierre Huyghe's 'Untilled'

'Untilled', Pierre Huyghe’s contribution to dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012, an installation involving various nonhuman elements, has been previously argued as demonstrative of a posthumanist trend of living animals as ‘agents’ in art spaces. This thesis identifies voyeuristic modes of display in zoos and natural history museums, with the aim of examining the ways in which human vision and knowledge production has been privileged over interactivity between human and nonhuman elements in exhibitions of 'Untilled' after dOCUMENTA (13). Through methods of visual analysis and discourses around the politics of display, I argue that Huyghe created a complex relational hierarchy between beings, leading to an institutional critique of the nature of exhibitions. Furthermore, the ways in which the artist’s agency itself became compromised in exhibitions of 'Untilled' after dOCUMENTA (13) are identified, with the aim of offering insight as to the problematic relations of performance to documentation...Show more'Untilled', Pierre Huyghe’s contribution to dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012, an installation involving various nonhuman elements, has been previously argued as demonstrative of a posthumanist trend of living animals as ‘agents’ in art spaces. This thesis identifies voyeuristic modes of display in zoos and natural history museums, with the aim of examining the ways in which human vision and knowledge production has been privileged over interactivity between human and nonhuman elements in exhibitions of 'Untilled' after dOCUMENTA (13). Through methods of visual analysis and discourses around the politics of display, I argue that Huyghe created a complex relational hierarchy between beings, leading to an institutional critique of the nature of exhibitions. Furthermore, the ways in which the artist’s agency itself became compromised in exhibitions of 'Untilled' after dOCUMENTA (13) are identified, with the aim of offering insight as to the problematic relations of performance to documentation and artist to institution.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Museum as Menagerie: Networks of Agency and Displays of Voyeurism in Pierre Huyghe's 'Untilled'