Philippe Parreno’s multimedia extravaganza, H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS, opens in New York's Park Avenue Armory

Exhibition hall with multimedia display including grand piano, cages on the wall and a large video wall

French artist Philippe Parreno has opened a vast multimedia show at New York's Park Avenue Armory

(Image credit: press)

last updated 16 October 2022

Contributions from
Ali Morris

Since the 1990s Philippe Parreno has promoted the notion of 'the exhibition as medium' - the idea that individual works function as components in a larger scheme; a kind of totalising experience. This summer, Parreno will make the grandest statement yet of this philosophy with the opening of a vast show in New York's Park Avenue Armory.

Titled 'H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS' (pronounced 'Hypnosis') the show will fill the Armory's gargantuan 55,000 sq ft 'Drill Hall', with various elements by a host of artists, production and sound designers playing out simultaneously, the sequences and events constantly informing each other, overlapping to create near endless combinations.

Components of the show include work by Parreno himself such as new film, The Crowd (2015), as well as previous pieces and revisited formats, which have been recombined to impart a conscious New York flavour. 'The idea is for the space to seem animated by the city,' Parreno says, ' as if the locale is trying to communicate directly with you, to take over.'

Hanging from the Armory's vast vaulted ceiling, meanwhile, are rows of Parreno's trademark marquees, each of them programmed to play music across the huge space - classical pieces as well as ambient, electronic scores - while more music also emanates from ghostly pianos apparently playing themselves. Massive film screens occasionally rise and fall, and roof blinds slide open and closed, seemingly opening up the venue to the amplified street traffic sounds from Lexington Avenue outside.

The result is a shifting, spectral wonderland, where moments of thrumming noise and dazzling movement contrast spectacularly with sequences that convey a quieter more melancholy sensibility.

Read more about Philippe Parreno's synthesis of talent and hitting a high note in New York in the July 2015 issue, page 062 (W*196). Subscribers can enjoy the limited-editon cover created by Philippe Parreno and M/M Paris, too.

Exhibition hall with wooden floor and wire structures hanging from the ceilings and walls — Titled 'H {N)Y P N(Y} OSIS', the show fills the Armory's gargantuan 55,000 sq ft Drill Hall

Large exhibition hall with large metal structures hanging from the ceilings and walls — Various works created by a host of artists, production and sound designers play out simultaneously, the sequences and events constantly informing each other, overlapping to create near endless combinations

Large metal light structure hanging from the wall in front of a large photo of a tree — 'I wanted to keep the space open,' explains the artist, 'to enable an architecture of attention - an architecture that is created by visitors as they make their way through the space.'

Large exhibition space with large metal lighting structures hanging from the ceiling and a large floor to ceiling video wall — The show also includes works by Parreno himself such as new film, The Crowd (pictured), as well as previous pieces and revisited formats, which have been recombined to impart a conscious New York flavour

large exhibition space with large metal lighting features hanging from the ceiling and a purple media wall — Rows of Parreno's trademark marquees hang from the Armory's vast vaulted ceiling, each of them programmed to play music across the huge space, while more music also emanates from ghostly pianos apparently playing themselves

Metal viewing staircase in front of a large media wall — Massive film screens occasionally rise and fall, and roof blinds slide open and closed, seemingly opening up the venue to the amplified street traffic sounds from Lexington Avenue outside

Large metal lighting structures hanging from the ceiling of an exhibition hall with wooden floor — Parreno has in the past likened his job to that of a producer or choreographer, bringing together disperate individuals to realise a collective creation

An playing a grand piano in a large exhibition hall with large media screen and viewing staircase — For the Amory show, virtuoso pianist Mikhail Rudy will perform daily recitals

Exhibition hall with grand pianos and large metal lighting structures hanging from the ceiling — Other collaborators include graphic designers M/M and avant-garde musicians such as Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, who have created electronic soundscapes

Large metal light structures hanging in an exhibition hall with a grand piano and blue multi-media screens — The idea is that the exhibition constantly interweaves live and recorded elements, designed and spontaneous gestures, reality and fiction - but also synthesises these experiences into a single seamlessly unified entity

Cover of Wallpaper magazine from July 2015 — TYPE-NOSIS from M/M Paris. The limited-edition cover of W*196 - a 'graphypnotic' interpretation of Philippe Parreno's marquee created Parreno and graphic design duo. M/M Paris is behind the graphics for the exhibition, including a bespoke typeface pictured here

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With contributions from

Ali Morris