Helen Marten

Sculptor and video artist Helen Marten combines disparate imagery and materials to create eclectic, large scale works. Through intricate, assemblage-inspired installations, Marten plays with the notion and history of the readymade. The viewers’ expectations are constantly upended, as presumed found objects are revealed upon close inspection to be sculptural entities, handcrafted by Marten herself. In this way, Marten’s installations—complete with colorful images and a wild amalgamation of objects—generally achieve a wholly disarming effect, one that belies the quiet and contemplative aesthetic with which her work is ultimately underlined by.

Regarding her video art, Marten creates hyperreal digital animations. In Evian Disease, which Marten produced for her 2012 solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, lifelike animations of interiors, foods, and human bodies are accompanied by a chorus of narrators in conversation. Both educational and confessionary in tone—but riddled with linguistic anomalies—these voiceovers are unrelated to their visual accompaniments, and as a result, Marten offers a smart, of-the-moment critique of production, consumerism, and our relationship to things today. 

In addition to her show at the Palais de Tokyo, Marten has also been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Bard-Hessel Museum in Annandale-on-Hudson and the Kunsthalle Zurich. Her work has been included in major group exhibitions at MoMA PS1, Museion in Bolzano, and London’s Camden Arts Centre as well as in the 55^th Venice Biennale, the Lyon Biennale, and the 59^th Oberhausen International Film Festival in Germany.  Marten received the Lafayette Prize 2011 and the LUMA Award 2012.