Artist Philippe Parreno reanimates Marilyn Monroe in first Russian solo exhibition

French artist and filmmaker Philippe Parreno’s first solo exhibition opened in Moscow’s Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture on Sunday, with a film that brings Marilyn Monroe back to life. The exhibition includes Marilyn (2012), which sees the world through the American actress Marilyn Monroe’s eyes as she sits at a desk and writes a letter in a suite in New York’s Waldorf Astoria where she lived in the 1950s. Parreno created robots to mimic Monroe’s voice and handwriting for the film.

The Algerian-born, Paris-based artist is best known for radically redefining the exhibition by conceiving his shows as a scripted space where a series of events unfold. His exhibition at Garage, which was curated by world-renowned art historian Hans Ulrich Obrist, guides the visitor through the gallery using an orchestration of sounds and images. Sound for the exhibition was composed by Nicolas Becker.

L to R: Philippe Parreno and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Photograph: RIA Novosti

Parreno used these techniques in his most recent project, Dancing around the Bride at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where visitors were guided around artworks of John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Marcel Duchamp. In a similar exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery, spectators moved from room to room following a soundtrack.

Parreno rose to prominence in the Nineties, earning critical acclaim for his work, which employs a diversity of media including film, sculpture, performance, drawing and text.

The exhibition at Garage runs until 4 April.