Henrot currently has a new film on view at LUMA Arles, In the Veins, which previously appeared at the New Museum’s inaugural show in its reimagined campus on the Bowery. Barrington currently has one of the most talked-about installations at the Venice Biennale; in November, his Western Beef-High Line will open, where else, on the High Line in New York City.
The two had never met until I convened a conversation between them Monday night at the hotel’s Louis XIII salon, away from the city’s bustling gallery openings.
“What I like about you is you’re ambitious. I want to hear more about what you’re up to,” Barrington said to Henrot in the middle of a wide-ranging conversation about what it’s like to make art in 2026.
Henrot spoke about the process of making her first play, Commedia dell’arte—which premiered in Aspen over the summer before a run in New York—and revealed that she’d like for it to come to Paris. Barrington talked about his standout installation at this year’s Venice Biennale, Labor Day Parade ’91, and how it was born out of a desire to transcend the way art communicates.
As the talk wound down, the party outside the Louis XIII was in full swing. Barrington and Henrot soon joined a crowd snacking on salmon blini and caviar and sipping endless flutes of Champagne. (Every party this week has Champagne; we’re in Paris, of course.) The soiree also featured full-on cocktails. While planning the conversation, I got to talking with Thibault Mequignon, chef de bar at the hotel, about a special themed menu for the bar. We came up with four drinks themed loosely around a diaspora of artists and writers who fled the States—not New York, but smaller American cities—for Paris: a vodka martini inspired by Kenneth Noland, born in Asheville; a rye whiskey long drink inspired by Cy Twombly, born in Lexington, Virginia.