BRUSSELS.- “Antre” – the French word for a lair or a den – Joël Riff’s seventh exhibition as curator of La Verrière, explores the depths from which we emerge. A metaphor for the studio, and the very antithesis of any glass roof, this obscure zone is now brought into the light by the exhibition of still-vibrant fragments, removed from their source. In this way, the project examines the tension between the violence and legitimacy of ‘the exhibition’ in the strict sense of the term, showcasing that which is often discarded. The expedition revolves around Pélagie Gbaguidi’s work, which is characterised by encounters the artist makes around the world while embracing sedentary stints at a central site in her practice, twelve kilometres south of the Brussels address of the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès.

Going against the grain of extractivism, the aim is to find a balance between what we extract and what we return, encouraging an awareness of how we treat what we take. The artist navigates through brutal realities as a means to transform materials. A mediator of memories, she bears witness and passes them on.

While her work is receiving increasing international recognition, Pélagie Gbaguidi has rarely exhibited in Belgium.

This is her first major solo show in Brussels. The exhibition focuses on her paintings and drawings, reviving the impact of her powerful pictorial work. At La Verrière, her works are surrounded by furniture made by the Brussels collective Aygo, the words of French author Sophie Marie Larrouy (FR, b.1984), sculptures by Marianne Berenhaut (BE, b.1934) and embroideries by Hessie (JA, 1933-2017).

The presence of the latter, who was the subject of a solo exhibition at La Verrière in 2016 when Pélagie Gbaguidi first met her, is also a way of raising public awareness of the 25th anniversary of the exhibition space – inaugurated in 2000 – and highlights its enduring importance.

“ANTRE”

Pélagie Gbaguidi images. This verb, often conjugated in the passive voice or relegated to old-fashioned language, finds its full determination and relevance here in the third person singular of the present tense. The figures she produces are actively surfacing today. They find an unmistakable form that demands our observation. In this way, the artist opens our eyes rather than closes them. In a lasting sense of urgency, she succeeds in this test of representation, even to the extent of referring to it as presentation. Her necessary works may tell a story, but they exist above all through their visual power, freed from narrative. Perhaps the narrative, however brutal, is incidental. Let’s prioritise frontality, the ability to confront. It is precisely these confrontations that the artist strives to immortalise, to prevent them from being misplaced, forgotten or denied. She transforms anger into scores that are nervous but not hostile. A silent serenity seems to permeate everything, thanks to the sweetness balanced alongside the horror. Each piece succeeds in igniting a lasting incandescence.

Pélagie Gbaguidi paints and draws. Although she engages with other media equally well, they mustn’t dilute the astonishing impetus of her pictorial production. In a range of formats, lying flat on a variety of supports, acrylic paint, grease pencil, charcoal, dry pastel and pure pigment are spread over materials that hold certain connotations: flour sacks, sheets of notebook paper, pharmaceutical instructions, cotton sheets and pages of books. Their use may seem narrative for those seeking stories, but it is fundamentally trivial; when there’s no time to wait, you take what’s at hand, in a single stroke. Ergonomic traces appear in the artist’s body prints, which mark the compositions with a series of clues. All this takes place in a workspace south of Brussels, in Beersel, where she has established her studio in a former village café. This popular meeting place was once the centre of an entire community: from its joys to its sorrows, its births to its deaths. The place is marked by food and flesh, the revelling and desires stifled by good manners. Yet, the appetite still remains.

The exhibition “Antre” isn’t so much about where one hides as where one comes from. It explores extraction. By drilling into the depths, a new access is created – an outlet. It’s about escaping geographies while creating your own space. You are no longer confined in any way, but voluntarily isolated in what is called a haven, your own, a port to drop anchor in. From this harbour, the artist extracts. Whether anatomical or geological, there are cavities where shared entrails are nestled. It comes from the gut. A lot of literature prefers to reserve this universal hollow for magicians – the sordid lair of scheming, a handy pejorative for inhospitable morals. However, one simple letter transforms a hole into whole. Wholeness, like that of a hearth where it is hot and everything burns. The energy of embers. At a time when the notion of a safe space is becoming so pervasive, and too many minorities feel under constant threat, it seems necessary to describe these refuges, to understand what makes them hospitable, and to maintain connection. Rather than reclusion, communication must persist. Asylum must not be a rupture.

Pélagie Gbaguidi testifies to her need to express herself. She reveals that she is not inspired, but summoned. In this way, she makes herself available to the contexts through which she travels. Despite the cruelties she observes, no defeatism extinguishes her drive. She continues to give shape to the social webs that move her, in a dynamic of celebration and joy. There is a polarity between the obvious and the biographical, between what appears and what is heard. While this project tends to prioritise the first aspect, it is bound to remain sensitive to the second. Generosity and clarity unambiguously characterise the experience. These works, therefore, act as an interface between the subterranean – kept at a distance – and what is brought within reach of its audience. A journey to the deepest depths and back. From suffering, damage and trauma, the intention is to awaken an ultimate sense of humanity through writing that is capable of perpetuating it.

The exhibition “Antre” resembles an interval. An interstice that makes it possible to reverse things: from shadow to light, from the privacy of the studio to the public address. The display sets out to create a magma of objects to be traversed, so as to better approach the flagrancy of the works on the wall. This essential chaos consists of a temporary relocation of the home of Aygo, a group of designers based just a stone’s throw away. In less than two years, they have transformed their home into a stunning total work of art. Pélagie Gbaguidi’s habit of always bringing something back from her travels echoes the group’s rule of never returning from the street empty- handed, always finding objects to transform. Displacement and domesticity, the nomadic spirit and the sedentary way of life motivate these gestures, in a polysemy of correspondence. The exhibition also houses works by Marianne Berenhaut and Hessie, iconic presences striving for relief, if not survival. A never before published contribution by the author Sophie Marie Larrouy anchors the seriousness of the ensemble, thanks to her ability to articulate all that is wrong. Let’s bear in mind that if you must speak out, it’s because it’s not a given. In this way, without any contradiction between ideals and needs, life is shaped by bringing one’s own voice out of the darkness.

--Joël Riff