This spring, the Galerie PARIS-B is pleased to present HERE THERE NOWHERE, a group exhibition that retraces the development of the gallery since it opened in Brussels in October 2012.
Oscillating between an attachment to the real and a pull towards a fantastic and out-of-the-ordinary world, the works presented gravitate around an artistic practice that translates our recurrent aspiration to escape the mundane.
Through ingenious combinations of elements taken from the everyday and from nature, Myeongbeom Kim solicits our imagination while keeping one foot firmly rooted in the real. His creations take us into an intense metaphorical and emotional dimension; they speak to us of life (and death), at once offering us a sense of the lightness of being and the vulnerability of our existence.
The collages, drawings and videos of the American duo Ghost of a Dream highlight our quest for renewal and our perpetual search for a better life. Through a critique of the role that the media play in a society of consumption, they analyse the misplaced hope and trust of our time, characterized by fantasies of wealth and easily attained happiness.
The disturbing world of Wang Haiyang is an open manifestation of his unconscious. His work explores the dream state through a concept of artistic expression as a pure, psychic activity. His videos are less about understanding or explaining than letting oneself be carried away by the artist’s unbridled imagination: bodies and objects metamorphose, while enigmatic images put us face to face with disturbing emotions.
Magical Reality by Sung Soo Koo is characterized by homogeneous chromatic choices in saturated hues. The objects of daily life are magnified thanks to a clever manipulation of light. Despite the vivacity of the colours, the scenes possess something of the tragic: a deformed perception of reality that reflects the artist’s feelings of isolation and alienation.
In the strange world of Maleonn, merry super heroes are covered in bruises, and postmen walk through walls to deliver letters. Using digital resources and manual colouring techniques, this former film director creates a malicious fantasy world where his outlandish imagination serves a metaphorical narrative theme.
In the digital era, the crossed-out inscription on the old clocks by the French artist RERO seems to question the notion of time and the obsolescence of objects, while the artist Liu Bolin, known throughout the world for his socially-engaged camouflage performances, chooses a playful and intensely coloured décor.
Like a fairy-tale allegory, Jiang Zhi’s splendid rainbow, with its perfect curves, is in reality composed of commercial neon lights salvaged at random from the streets of Beijing. This artificial landscape, inspired by a natural meteorological phenomenon, offers a unique view on consumerist society.
The flying houses of Laurent Chéhère transpose dwellings from working class neighbourhoods into a world of suspension, symbols of a desire for social ascent, while we lose our gaze in the infinite light of Chul Hyun Ahn’s luminous installations.