ARTFEED — Contemporary Art Intelligence

Pierre Huyghe's Documenta Star Ibizan Hound Human Dies at Age 13

artist · 2026-04-20

Human, the white Ibizan hound with a pink-painted left front leg who became an integral part of Pierre Huyghe's 2012 Documenta installation, has died at approximately 13 years old. The dog was originally purchased by Huyghe from a rescue shelter a year before the exhibition. For the duration of the 100-day German art festival in Kassel, Human inhabited a garden environment created by the French artist, which featured psychotropic and aphrodisiac plants, an oak tree relocated from Joseph Beuys's seminal 1982 work *7,000 Oaks*, and a nude sculpture with a beehive head. The canine performer later appeared in Huyghe's 2014 touring retrospective, exploring exhibition spaces at the Pompidou in Paris, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Following her retirement from public life, Human lived with Marlon Middeke, the Kassel-based environmental engineering student who helped construct the original garden and has since become an artist. Huyghe has described his works as evolving entities rather than static monuments, comparing them to a garden where elements appear, disappear, and reappear in different forms. The Ibizan Hound breed, known for its slender build, was historically used for rabbit hunting on the Spanish island of Ibiza.

Key facts

  • Human, the Ibizan hound from Pierre Huyghe's 2012 Documenta work, has died.
  • The dog was approximately 13 years old at the time of death.
  • Human was purchased by Huyghe from a rescue shelter in 2011.
  • The dog performed in Huyghe's installation at Documenta 13 in Kassel for 100 days.
  • Human later appeared in Huyghe's 2014 retrospective at the Pompidou, Museum Ludwig, and LACMA.
  • After retiring, Human lived with Marlon Middeke, who helped build the Documenta garden.
  • Marlon Middeke was an environmental engineering student who has become an artist.
  • Huyghe views his works as evolving entities, not static monuments.

Entities

Artists

  • Pierre Huyghe
  • Joseph Beuys
  • Marlon Middeke

Institutions

  • Documenta
  • Centre Pompidou
  • Museum Ludwig
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art
  • ArtReview

Locations

  • Kassel
  • Germany
  • Paris
  • France
  • Cologne
  • Los Angeles
  • United States
  • Ibiza
  • Spain

Sources