Matters of Concern | Matières à panser
Exhibition dates: 27/04/2019 to 06/07/2019
La Verrière
50, boulevard de Waterloo
1000 Brussels Belgium
Free admission, Tuesday to Saturday, 12-6 p.m.
Artists:
Igshaan Adams
Raymonde Arcier
Camille Blatrix
Jean-Baptiste Calistru
Gilles Clément
Odonchimeg Davaadorj
Shoshanah Dubiner
La Fabric’Art Thérapie
Jos de Gruyter et Harald Thys
Anna Halprin
Karen Kamenetzky
Corita Kent
Maria Laet
Jean-Luc Moulène
Musée du Compagnonnage de la ville de Tours
Mamadou Michel N’Diaye
Meret Oppenheim
Gina Pane
Violeta Parra
Artavazd Pelechian
Aline Ribière
Lois Weinberger
Curated by Guillaume Désanges
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 Fabric’art’s détournements of medical objects to the cellular tapestries of Karen Kamenetzky; 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.
