Two on Call, 2020

Two on Call is a bronze sculpture by Camille Henrot in which a group of slender, elongated forms rise from a flat metal base — among them two figurative elements, akin to fantastic figures, one rounded and bird-like, the other skeletal and branching — interspersed with actual telephone handsets and coiled cables suspended from the bronze elements. The patina ranges from deep verdigris greens to warm rusted browns, the found telephone components introducing a note of domestic familiarity into an otherwise spare, almost totemic arrangement.

The telephone — an instrument of connection and its failure, of presence mediated by distance — is a recurring object in Henrot's work. Her practice has consistently examined the structures through which people reach toward one another: the routines, tools, and technologies of communication that both enable and constrain intimacy. Here, the handsets hang unused, their cables trailing, the act of calling suspended rather than completed.

The representation of the two abstracted figures draws on an observation of Henrot's at an art fair where she noticed two female art dealers walking the aisles of the fair, on the phone, making deals. More generally, the work continues Henrot's ongoing theme of definitions of 'mothering' that extend beyond biology and can include friendship and mutual support outside the nuclear family.

Weight of sculpture including crate is 193 kg (425 lbs)
Plinth Art Basel Paris: 41 x 102 x 59 cm (16 1/8 x 40 1/8 x 23 1/4 in)