Clément Poplineau's Le Bruit & l'Odeur @ Stems Gallery in Brussels

Clement Poplineau, LES FRAUDEURS, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Stems Gallery.

Clement Poplineau, LES FRAUDEURS, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Stems Gallery.

Stems Gallery presents Clément Poplineau’s Le Bruit & l’Odeur, where his close friends and family are actually the main subjects of his paintings. Using his provocative and hyper-realistic brushwork, the painter wants to be a witness for this social reality. In 1991, former French president Jacques Chirac spoke out about the smell and the noise (le bruit et l’odeur) as legitimate reasons for French citizens to hate non-white workers. Therefore, the painter appropriates the insult, making for his diverse entourage tailor-made canvases.

Clément Poplineau paints Renaissance-like, realistic portraits of French banlieue youngsters. Clément Poplineau uses historical métier for contemporary tableaus. Centuries and social hierarchies are put on equal footing. And as the origin of portraiture indicates, Clément Poplineau’s paintings think about power, class, and identity—only he sharpens it. By sacralizing the “symbolic activities” that make up the banlieue’s youngster identities—from social exclusion to visual and bodily language—his paintings revaluate (un)ruly habits.

Le Bruit & l’Odeur is on view through July 1 @ Stems Gallery, 4 rue du Prince Albert 1050 Brussels

Clement Poplineau, PLAN B "scène de braquage", 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Stems Gallery.

Katherine Bernhardt "Product Recall: New Pattern Paintings" @ Xavier Hufkens in Brussels

Known for her large-scale pattern paintings depicting constellations of everyday items that have been isolated from their original context, American artist Katherine Bernhardt has created a new ensemble of colorful and dynamic images that take inspiration from both Brussels and New York. Executed in acrylic and spray paint on canvas, in a spontaneous and fluid style, her latest work features objects typically associated with Belgian popular culture, such as Smurfs and chocolate, with those representative of America, such as Lisa Simpson and Nike trainers. Added to the mix are domestic objects like toilet rolls and Windex; toucans and tropical fruits (a reference to the artist’s frequent travels to Puerto Rico); iconic games from her teenage years during the early 1980s (Pac-Man and the Rubik’s cube); and food and drink (Nutella, cigarettes, wine). Because of the myriad objects in her work, it is sometimes interpreted as a wry comment on consumerism. Yet this is not a conscious concern of the artist, who is primarily motivated by a fascination with her everyday surroundings, and in giving it expression through color and composition. Katherine Bernhardt "Product Recall: New Pattern Paintings" will be on view until June 18, 2016 at Xavier Hufkens, 107 rue St-Georges, Brussels, Belgium

Art From The Dark Heart of Europe: Read Our Conversation With The Dangerous and Alluring Gallery Director Harlan Levey on the Eve of Art Rotterdam →

Marcin Dudek Performance at opening of new HLP space, 2015

Harlan Levey Projects is not only one of the most exciting galleries in new art hot spot Brussels, but the gallery may also have one of the greatest and most exciting rosters and platforms in the world. On the eve of Art Brussels 2016, we have a chat with Harlan about his stint as a professional soccer player, contemporary art and more. Read the full interview here. 

Radek Szlaga 'All the Brutes' @ Harlan Levey Projects

Who was it again that wrote every time he came to Brussels, he had to think of the plundered richness of the Congo on which this city was built? From Park Cinquentenaire, to the stately avenues Louise and Tervuren, King Leopold II’s Museum for Central Africa, there are countless buildings, sculptures and squares across town, which directly or indirectly remind us of the country’s colonial past. This makes the capital of Europe a perfect setting for Radek Szlaga’s exhibition "All the Brutes" on view now at Harlan Levey Projects. The show consists of a selection of works from his on-going series, which digs into Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness; a work that has become the textbook example in colonial studies of a caricatured depiction of Africa. Szlaga hasn’t followed Conrad to the Congo, but spent two months in Brussels on a residency this year exploring the links between the heart of Europe and the heart of darkness. In case any Belgian viewers might object to a body of work dealing with the Congo that’s painted by an artist who has never been to Africa, let’s remind ourselves that Leopold II never placed a foot on Congolese soil as he uprooted it. Besides, Szlaga’s aim is not to present some anthropological view on Congo, but to explore, in a pictorial way, how the novel is engrained in our collective imagination, whether that is through literature, cinema, painting or in daily life (like the all too often quoted: “The horror! The horror!”). Radek Szlaga 'All the Brutes' will be on view until July 11, 2015 at Harlan Levey Projects, 46 Rue Jean d’Ardenne Straat, Brussels. 

Jeff Koons : Humankind Before All

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Jeff Koons has had a busy summer. A troika of career-reaffirming exhibitions have just been taking place throughout Europe : the Fondation Beyeler in Basel has produced a retrospective of his works centered around three principal groups of works (“New,” “Banality,” and “Celebration”); the Schirn Kunsthalle and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, both in Frankfurt, have been focusing on the two major arteries of Koons’ artistic production : his painting, and his sculpture, exhibited simultaneously, but in two separate Frankfurt venues. Now, another impressive exhibition of Jeff Koons’ art is about to open: at Almine Rech Gallery in Brussels. This is an event for many reasons: this is the first Koons exhibition in Brussels since 1992, when Made in Heaven was revealed to the Belgian public. More importantly, the present exhibition crowns this summer’s harvest : it concludes, recaps, but also expands again, on this extraordinarily rich and fecund season of exhibitions of Koons’ oeuvre. Jeff Koons : Humankind Before All will be on view from October 10 to November 17, 2012 at Almine Rech Gallery, 20 Rue De L'Abbaye Abdijstraat, Brussels

Alina Szapocznikow: Sculpture Undone

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On view now at the Wiels contemporary art center in Brussels is an expansive survey of little known Polish sculptor Alina Szapocznikow (1926-1973) which coincides with the Polish presidency of the European Union and is one of the first major solo exhibitions of the artist's work outside of Poland. It concentrates on her most experimental period from the 1960s and 1970s, before her untimely death at age 47. As a Holocaust survivor who began working in the post-war period in a rather classical, figurative manner, her later experimentation and re-conception of sculpture left behind a legacy of provocative objects - at once sexualized, visceral, humorous, and political - that sit uneasily between Surrealism, Nouveau Réalisme, and Pop Art. Her tinted polyester-resin casts of her lips and breasts transformed into quotidian objects like lamps or ashtrays, her spongy polyurethane forms often embedded with casts of bellies or live grass, and her construction of resin sculptures that incorporate found photographs remain as remarkably biting, visionary, and original today as when they were first made. The exhibition features extensive archival materials as well as more than 100 artworks, including drawings and photography alongside Szapocznikow's sculpture and object-making. On view until January 8, 2012.