Camille Henrot

Wet Job

Middelheim Museum is pleased to present the first comprehensive institutional solo exhibition by French artist Camille Henrot in Belgium.

The exhibition ‘Wet Job’ is the first of its kind to focus on the sculptural practice of Camille Henrot (*1978), bringing together works from Overlapping Figures (2011), Desktop Series (2013-2014), Monday (2016), System of Attachment (2018-2021), as well as Henrot’s series Wet Job (2021), recently presented at the Liverpool Biennial.
The title of the exhibition is evidently borrowed from the latter, a series of paintings and sculptures that explore the limits and borderlines of the post-partum body, along with the conflicting pressures and expectations for productivity imposed upon it. ‘Wet Job’, in the context of this exhibition, has multiple and evolving meanings: it refers to the act of care; to nursing or breast-pumping, the fluidity of identity, life and loss and, more generally, to the sometimes messy nature of dependency.

Henrot’s longstanding interest in the tension between attachment and separation – to each other, our environments, and our devices – consistently weaves through her practice. Inspired by literature, social media, cartoons, poetry, self help and the banality of everyday life, Henrot’s work captures the complexity of living in an increasingly connected and over-stimulated world. At the heart of Henrot’s sculptural practice is an endeavour to attribute shapes to the liminality of bodies, to shifting identities, to inner conflict and society’s ceaseless need to both express and consume at the same time.

Henrot was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2013 for her ground-breaking film Grosse Fatigue (2013), which is considered one of the most significant works of that decade. In 2017, Henrot was invited to the Carte Blanche series at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, resulting in the major survey exhibition ‘Days Are Dogs’. She is the recipient of the 2014 Nam June Paik Award and the 2015 Edvard Munch Award and has participated in numerous solo exhibitions worldwide, most recently at the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Art Sonje Center, Seoul; and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo.

Join us for the artist talk and opening festivities on June 11, from 11 am on.

Artists: Camille Henrot

Also happening at Wet Job