Louise Hervé and Chloé Maillet are a French art duo. They produce genre movies, performances, installation works and specialise in the production of knowledge, commentary and alternate forms of narration. They make work that sits between the ‘real’, and imagined realities, they speculate about future ‘truths’, and hypothesize or construct fictious theories, or invent new scientific discoveries.
Their partnership unites their academic backgrounds in the humanities with artistic practice’s to consider the role of research centres or laboratory’s as sites of experimentation, exploration and examination, in the production of knowledge. They have created projects under the names of the International Institute for Important Items [I.I.I.I] and The Insititute of Things To Come. Projects by Hervé and Maillet will very often involve: references to mythology and science fiction, a re-creating of historical events, borrowing from academia - such as archaelogical or anthropological methodologies, traditional lecturing practices, musuem curation, and mapping out sites of significance and curiousity in ways a tourist guide might.
Hervé and Maillet’s Te Whare Hēra residency resulted in a one-off performance work called Initialise the Model (2016) which was inspired by Te Atiawa and pakeha’ settler histories, science, archaeology and the weather of Matiu/Somes Island. The island sits in the middle of the Te Whanganui a Tara/Wellington harbour and is owned by Te Atiawa, and is a predator free scientific reserve. The artists audience travelled by ferry to the island’s historic Caretakers Cottage for the performance .
Hervé and Maillet began working together in Paris in 2000. Hervé studied Art and Art History graduating with a B.A. in 2003 and a M.A. in 2005, while Maillet went on to complete a PhD in Anthropological History in 2010.
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Louise Hervé and Chloé Maillet, Spectacles without objects. Production photograph, 2016. Courtesy of Galerie Marcelle Alix. Photograph by Yann Monel.
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Louise Hervé and Chloé Maillet, Spectacles without objects. Production photograph, 2016. Courtesy of Galerie Marcelle Alix. Photograph by Yann Monel.
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Louise Hervé and Chloé Maillet, 2010. Courtesy of Galerie Marcelle Alix. Photograph by Aurélien Mole.
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Louise Hervé and Chloé Maillet, Initialise the model. Performance on Matiu/Somes Island, 2017.
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Louise Hervé and Chloé Maillet, Initialise the model. Performance on Matiu/Somes Island, 2017.
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Louise Hervé and Chloé Maillet, Initialise the model. Performance on Matiu/Somes Island, 2017.
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Louise Hervé and Chloé Maillet, The Waterway. HD film, 2014. Courtesy of Galerie Marcelle Alix.
Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet’s residency was supported by the French Embassy in New Zealand. They are represented by Marcelle Alix Gallery, Paris. For more information on the artists visit Marcelle Alix’s website
