In Conversation: Remembering Huguette Caland with Brigitte Caland, L’Or Puymartin, Robert Wilhite, and Chief Curator Claire Gilman

“I love every minute of my life. I squeeze it like an orange, and I eat the peel, because I don’t want to miss a thing. “ —Huguette Caland, 2003

This discussion about the life and spirit of the fearless Lebanese artist, designer, and writer Huguette Caland was presented in conjunction with the exhibition Huguette Caland: Tête-à-Tête. The conversation was hosted by the artist's daughter Brigitte Caland and granddaughter L’Or Puymartin, along with the Los Angeles-based artist Robert Wilhite and The Drawing Center's Chief Curator, Claire Gilman.

Huguette Caland: Tête-à-Tête is the artist's most comprehensive solo museum exhibition. Bringing together works on paper and canvas from the past five decades—as well as caftans, mannequins, sculptures, and notebooks on and in which she wielded her pen—the exhibition shows how Caland used the candidness and mutability of the medium of drawing to challenge traditional representations of sexuality, the body and desire.

This conversation was recorded via zoom on June 19, 2021.


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