Marguerite Humeau’s supernatural, biomorphic sculptures could have been lifted from a work of science fiction, occupying a world in which hypermodern technology and medical equipment have displaced human life. A vacillation between speculative science and ancient myth, robot and fossil, biomedical engineering and archaeological discovery is a defining characteristic of Humeau’s practice, which plays out in physical spaces that read as cyborg temples and laboratories of the extinct. Working with researchers in the fields of zoology, biology, and paleontology, Humeau has dyed carpets with every chemical in the human body, made soundscapes conjuring noises made by prehistoric animals, created contemporary versions of Paleolithic-era “Venus” statuettes, and directed pink hippopotamus milk through simulated veins. In new pieces made from aluminium, salt, plastic ocean waste, and algae for The Milk of Dreams, Humeau borrows from research on ecstatic rituals, trances, animal morphology, and climate change. Posing ritual as an expression of consciousness, she stages sinuous marine sculptures as if caught in a moment of religious rapture. What emerges here is a type of sublime understanding of mortality that may exist beyond the domain of humans.
Madeline Weisburg
