The Armory Opens Phillippe Parreno's H{N)YPN(Y}OSIS Today

For his largest presentation in the U.S. to date, Philippe Parreno orchestrates a scripted series of events within the monumental interior of Park Avenue Armory's Wade Thompson Drill Hall-transforming the traditional exhibition experience through an interplay of film, sculpture, and the spectral presence of sound and light. H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS (pronounced hypnosis) features recitals by pianist Mikhail Rudy and a soundscape designed by Nicolas Becker that respond to Parreno's work and the Armory's expansive 55,000-square-foot space. Choreographed together by Parreno, these works form an all encompassing and continuously evolving artistic composition of operatic proportions.

On view at the Armory from today, June 11 through August 2, 2015, H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS was commissioned by Park Avenue Armory for its 2015 season. The exhibition is co-curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Alex Poots, with consulting curator Tom Eccles, and features set design by Randall Peacock. The exhibition is presented with support from the LUMA Foundation.

"The Armory enables contemporary artists across genres to achieve their most ambitious visions, unconstrained by traditional settings. Philippe's work in particular demands and thrives on this sort of creative freedom. His work radically redefines the exhibition ritual, transforming it from a series of individual works and experiences into a single unified event that interacts with and responds to our soaring drill hall," said Rebecca Robertson, President and Executive Producer of Park Avenue Armory. "Each day and indeed each moment of the installation will be different, revealing new connections among the objects, films, music, and architecture that constitute Philippe's vision."

The Armory's drill hall will be animated by a series of 26 marquee light sculptures by Parreno, six of which are being made especially for this exhibition. A central and defining element of H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS, the marquees come together as an ensemble piece of visual objects and sound producing instruments in their own right, arranged in order to form an avenue of light responding to the soundscape and other works on view. Other highlighted works include:

• Crowd, working title (2015), a new film shot within the Armory's drill hall space;
• Marilyn (2012), a phantasmagoric séance of the deceased starlit in a suite she once occupied at the Waldorf Astoria in New York;
• Invisibleboy (2010), a portrait of an illegal Chinese immigrant boy and his mother living in Chinatown in New York, and the spectral monsters that inhabit the child's imagination;
• A cumulative soundtrack of recorded sound and daily live performances by Mikhail Rudy of Ligeti, Feldman, Ravel, and Scriabin among others;
• Anywhere out of the world (2000) presenting a Japanese Manga character Annlee, as well as AnnLee (2011), a series of constructed situations created by Tino Sehgal and produced by Asad Raza.

"Philippe is one of the very rare artistic innovators," said Armory Artistic Director and exhibition co-curator Alex Poots. "This new exhibition will bring to life and engage with the Armory's monumental and storied drill hall space. Through the movement of his artworks, the use of light and dark, live and recorded music, and sound, film, and memory, Philippe is creating a total art work full of metaphor, counterpoints, coincidences, and interaction."

Added co-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, "In Philippe's hands, the exhibition itself becomes the work of art, a narrative and confluence of events that fold and unfold in the space. The architecture and the visitors come together as vital elements of this choreographed Gamelan Gesamtkunstwerk. The exhibition will appeal to all senses."