"Matters of Concern | Matières à panser": an exhibition series at La Verrière
The Foundation's exhibitions
Installation view of Camille Blatrix, "Les Barrières de l'antique", 2019, La Verrière © Isabelle Arthuis
Babi Badalov Exhibition view of « Soul Mobilisation », La Verrière (Bruxelles), 2019 © Isabelle Arthuis / Fondation d'entreprise Hermès
Babi Badalov Exhibition of « Soul Mobilisation », La Verrière (Bruxelles), 2019 © Isabelle Arthuis / Fondation d'entreprise Hermès
Opening in 2019, "Matters of Concern | Matières à panser" is the third series of exhibitions curated by Guillaume Désanges for La Verrière. Following on from "Des gestes de la pensée" ("Gestures, and thought") and "Poésie balisitique" ("Ballistic poetry"), this series coheres around a particular attention to materials. With a title borrowed from philosopher Bruno Latour, it features a wide range of different approaches that variously foreground the spiritual, social, symbolic, therapeutic and magical properties attributed to materials. Across the exhibitions that make up the series, new relations between art and the living world, objects and material elements emerge. Désanges offers an open exploration that sets out to pay close attention to, and even to "care" for, materials, as well as to grasp their transformational power.
The inaugural exhibition of the series creates original links between objects and both recent and existing works of art. Its approach goes beyond the traditional hierarchies that govern craft and art, foregrounding magical and therapeutic practices: from artisanal stained glass celebrating Mamadou, the healer of Roubaix, to the cathartic and therapeutic dance of Anna Halprin; from Raymonde Arcier's feminist dolls to Aline Ribière's symbolic and organic garments and the shamanic effigies of Harald Thys and Jos de Gruyter. Many of the artists whose work features in the exhibition share a common interest in reconceiving modes of material production and usage by emphasising attention and care. Through their ideas and their gestures, they point to the possibility of a shift in perspective that might allow the world to regain its enchantment.
Visitors to the first exhibition in the series will have noticed the maquettes of Camille Blatrix's sculptures: a paradoxical choice for an artist who elsewhere seeks to obscure the traces of his physical and gestural interventions. These maquettes offered a foretaste of the themes and atmosphere that permeate this artist's solo exhibition, curated by Guillaume Désanges and on view at La Verrière from September 5, 2019 as part of the "Matters of Concern| Matières à panser" series. The exhibition's title, "Les Barrières de l'antique", evokes the unparalleled virtuosity of the artisans of the past. Camille Blatrix (b. 1984, Paris) here explores the ambiguities of his own relationship to craft through a labyrinthine installation punctuated by objects, marquetry and drawings, as well as interventions by the artist's father, himself a painter turned shipwright. Infused with the artist's skill and executed in a quest for perfection, the works on view here subtly elicit unexpected emotions.
The pared-down aesthetic of Camille Blatrix gives way to the exuberance of Babi Badalov in "Soul Mobilisation", the second solo exhibition presented at La Verrière as part of the "Matters of Concern / Matières à panser" series. Intensely and generously, Badalov's work invests the whole exhibition space with obsessional calligraphic forms that condense his poetic relationship to language as well as his singular trajectory: he was born in Azerbaijan in 1959, and lived in Russia before emigrating to France, where in 2011 he obtained political refugee status. As a citizen of the world, Badalov offers an oeuvre that is universal in its very essence and intelligible to all, economy of means adding force to its politically engaged tone. With its scrolls and arabesques, at times applied directly to the walls, this work – as verbose as its materials are simple – invites visitors to La Verrière to confront the torment of our world, a welcome "matter of concern".
"Matters of Concern | Matières à panser" is the third series of exhibitions curated by Guillaume Désanges for La Verrière.
Many of the artists whose work features in the exhibition share a common interest in reconceiving modes of material production and usage by emphasising attention and care.
Each one of these practices offers a potential avenue for bringing enchantment back into the world.
Babi Badalov, from 29/11/2019 to 15/02/2020
Camille Blatrix, "Les Barrières de l'antique", from 05/09/2019 to 08/11/2019
"Matters of Concern | Matières à panser", from 27/04/2019 to 06/07/2019
50, boulevard de Waterloo
1000 Brussels Belgium
Free admission,
from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Exhibitions brochures
"Matters of Concern | Matières à panser"
Guillaume Désanges
Exhibitions at Atelier Hermès in 2019
Aloft at Hermès exhibition in 2019
Exhibitions at Le Forum in 2019
"L'héritage des secrets": a series of exhibitions at La Grande Place
"Ballistic Poetry": an exhibition series at La Verrière
"L'Esprit du Bauhaus", a major exhibition
See all the Foundation's projects
Keep informed of the Foundation's
latest news, events and programmes