New York
In the Western world, darkness traditionally carries connotations of wickedness, ignorance, and death, the negative pole of a black-and-white dualism that has long been used as a metaphorical shorthand for good versus evil. But this over-simplified concept conveniently glosses over the virtues of darkness: babies are nourished in the darkness of the womb, the stars in the nighttime sky require complete darkness in order to be seen from earth, and the darkness of sleep grants a peaceful rest at the end of a long day. In “scintille,” Marguerite Humeau—inspired by the beauty of a cave she visited in West Papua—explored what we might learn by embracing the transformative nature of darkness and ambiguity.
The exhibition title comes from the Latin scintilla, which holds the double meaning of a small flash of fire or the residual hint at the edges of perception or sensation. Visitors entering the show were engulfed in shadow rather than the stark bright light typical of galleries, re-creating the experience of descending into a cave. Stillenary (The Guardian of the Emergence) and Softament (The Guardian of Mineral Memory) (both 2025) dominated the space, resembling stalagmites that have patiently taken shape over the course of millennia. At first glance, Stillenary could be mistaken for a cloaked figure frozen mid-stride, thanks to a billowing, dull blue appendage. Though its skeletal patterning evokes familiar lifeforms such as deep-water coral and mammalian spines, any fleeting recognition quickly fades away as Stillenary reasserts itself as alien and reticent. Attempting to understand this mysterious form, one’s gaze is inevitably drawn higher, toward a cascade of glass spheres delicately balancing on its uppermost tip. This defiance of gravity echoes the paradox of stalagmite formation in which movement is created through stillness and monuments arise from tiny yet persistently repeated acts.
The upward momentum continued on the second floor, which was dedicated to the cave-dwelling bat. While the downstairs half of the show mainly consisted of pale grays and inky blacks, here, the color became almost shockingly vibrant, as if we had emerged from the subterranean depths to enter a sunset world suffused with fiery oranges and glowing shades of lilac. These colors infuse Humeau’s cast-glass sculptures of bats, each one given a title that denotes its individual role within the colony. The Dancing Bat stirs stagnant pockets of cave air to provide warmth, The Provider Beyond Bloodlines provides nourishment, and The Guardian of the Solution Pocket (all 2025) protects the secret hollows where vulnerable bats find shelter. Each object carries a distinct personality, from The Dancing Bat’s sweeping curves to The Guardian’s commanding demeanor. More significantly, there is an ensouled quality within Humeau’s work. Her sculptures possess a suspended momentum that is neither dead nor alive but could conceivably burst forth and shatter its physical constrains at any moment.
