Michel François / Solo Show at Carlier Gebauer Berlin

Until February 2011, Carlier Gebauer Gallery in Berlin presents work by Belgian artist Michel François. Michel François was born in 1956 in Saint-Trond in Belgium. He lives and works in Brussels.

Michel François realized numerous institutional exhibitions and took part in major events such as the 48th Venice Biennale, Documenta IX in Kassel, and the São Paulo Biennial XXI.

“Questioning the formal rhetoric of the classical genre of sculpture, Michel François’s work presents both industrial strengh and sublime fragility, as to consistently explore the potential offered by each material in terms of space, volume and balance. This oscillation between extremes – inside/outside, humble/luxurious, intimate/public – presents its beholder’s art with an elegantly obsolescent taste, which, observed more closely, brings to light a series of strong bonds between the pieces, and a poetic dialog with the space they are placed in.

Michel François’s show at carlier | gebauer will stage a fundamental meditation of the artist on his own recent spatial strategies. The exhibition presents a threefold artistic structure, in which a broken windowpane will welcome visitors at the entrance of the gallery, referring to the artist’s retrospective at Villeurbanne’s Institut d’Art Contemporain and at SMAK (Gent) “Plans d’évasion” (2009-2010), while the installation in the left gallery space engages on a material level with this monographic exhibition-format. In the right gallery space, large- as well as small-scale sculptures manifest the artist’s formal choices in several modalities.” (From the press release).

Michel François at Carlier Gebauer, Berlin. Opening reception, December 10, 2010. Video by Anna Gerasimova.

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