Exhibitions

Pierre Huyghe

Basel, Switzerland

An exhibition that does not behave like an exhibition. Pierre Huyghe turns the museum into a living, unstable environment — where fiction, biology, technology and perception blur.

Pierre Huyghe

Image credit

“Liminal” (2024-ongoing) by Pierre Huyghe, whose work explores art as both fiction and reality.Credit...Galerie Chantal Crousel, Marian Goodman Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Esther Schipper, TARO NASU and Anna Lena Films

Meet the artist

The Movement

Art Installation, Contemporary Art, Video Art Movement

ArtLovers Tip

Do not try to “understand” everything immediately. Huyghe’s work is better experienced as an atmosphere: move slowly, accept the uncertainty, and notice how your body reacts to the space.

Pierre Huyghe at Fondation Beyeler is a journey into a post-human landscape — beautiful, intelligent, unstable and deeply Artlovers-worthy.

Exhibition Highlights - What you'll see

Pierre Huyghe (1962) is a French contemporary artist known for refusing to stay within the lines. Born in 1962 and currently based in Santiago de Chile, he works with a wide range of materials—from film and sculpture to entire living ecosystems. The Fondation Beyeler is delighted to host a major new exhibition of his work, bringing together his most influential pieces with exciting new projects created specifically for this show.

Huyghe’s art is famous for blurring the lines between fiction and reality. By blending technology and biology with cinema and physics, he creates "living" environments that change and grow over time. Rather than just looking at a static object, you are invited to step into a dynamic situation where new perspectives and feelings can emerge.

We invite you to come and explore Pierre Huyghe’s fascinating and unpredictable universe. It is a unique opportunity to experience the work of one of the world's most innovative artists in a setting designed to surprise and inspire.

Fondation Beyeler presents a major exhibition of Pierre Huyghe, conceived specifically for the museum. Newly created works appear alongside key pieces from recent years, creating an immersive encounter with one of the most influential contemporary artists working today.

Huyghe is known for making artworks that feel alive, uncertain and constantly shifting. His practice crosses film, installation, sound, technology, biology, ecology and artificial intelligence, producing situations rather than static objects. This is also presented as the first solo museum exhibition in Switzerland dedicated to him.

Expect moving images, sound, objects, living organisms and machine-learning elements. The exhibition is described as a site-specific experience where the works and the spaces between them form ambiguous thresholds — part environment, part fiction, part sensory landscape.

Key themes

Fiction and reality. Huyghe uses fiction as a way to access possible worlds, not as escape but as speculation.

Human / non-human / machine. His work questions whether humans are still the centre of experience.

Living systems. The exhibition includes dynamic situations that can evolve over time.

Uncertainty. Nothing feels completely fixed; the visitor enters a world that is unstable, intelligent and slightly unsettling.

Worth the trip

Yes, Fondation Beyeler is the right place for this kind of exhibition: precise, architectural, close to nature, and able to give complex contemporary art the space it needs. For Artlovers, this is a strong Basel stop — especially if you want to see where contemporary art is going beyond painting, objects and traditional museum display.

How to experience it

Contemporary art lovers, visitors interested in AI, ecology, immersive installations, film, speculative worlds, and exhibitions that feel more like entering a living system than looking at artworks on walls.

This is a dense and immersive exhibition. Plan around 75–90 minutes if you want to fully enter Huyghe’s world; around 60 minutes for a focused visit.

Because you are an artlover,

Join our community of art enthusiasts and discover exhibitions, artists, and masterpieces tailored to your tastes. Get personalized recommendations and never miss a must-see show again.

Join us