Feature Many of us yearn for intimate, almost human interactions with art objects. But the risks might outweigh the rewards. April 22, 2026 — 6 min read Installation view of Pierre Huyghe, Liminal (2024) at Punta della Dogana, Venice. © Pierre Huyghe (photo Ola Rindal © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection) One luminous summer day in June, my daughter and I stepped into Pierre Huyghe’s exhibition Liminal (2024) at the Pinault Collection in Venice, Italy. It wasn’t easy to discern anything in the dim light. The ambiance was truly liminal . In the first gallery, we sidled up to a full-sized statue of a man with an eerie and smooth golden mask instead of a face.  “Wait, is that a real person?” my daughter asked. I dismissed her with a laugh and leaned in closer, snapping some pictures with my phone. Then, a guard startled us: “Step back from the performer.” Suddenly, we understood that we were not just in an art object’s domain.…