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Stéphane Belzère
"MONDES FLOTTANTS"
at MAMCS Strasbourg
© MAMCS, Stéphane Belzère, a-space gallery
In the mid-1990s, the painter Stéphane Belzère (born 1963) decided to set up his easel in the wet preparation room of the Paris Natural History Museum. This was the beginning of a visual adventure that continues to this day, during which the artist, who is at home in French, Swiss and German culture, bans a recurring motif onto the canvas with a purposefulness that borders on obsession: the specimen glass. He accumulates these vessels in the most varied of variations, enlarges them spectacularly, dips into them and lets them grow into immense enigmatic landscapes.
The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art has invited Stéphane Belzère to an encounter with the collection of the Strasbourg Zoological Museum (currently closed for renovation). In a room on the first floor of the MAMCS, the artist confronts around 200 glasses with the wet preparations of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates with his paintings and the installation Les Mains des Anges (The Hands of Angels), which was specially created for the Strasbourg show. For this participatory work-in-progress work, Belzère “conserves” hand casts, in the production of which he involves young visitors to the exhibition.
The title Flowing Worlds refers to the Japanese genre of art ukiyo-e (roughly “Pictures of the Flowing World”), which combines everyday themes with strongly codified painting. Stéphane Belzère designs his motifs in different formats and appearances, sometimes realistic, sometimes unfathomable. A constant in his work, on the other hand, is the intensive examination of light, color and transparency. The glass as an ordinary container for unusual things moves here between figuration and abstraction, fascination and disgust and is at the same time a scientific prop and an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the artist.
With this exhibition format, MAMCS is breaking new ground. As an interlude in the middle of the museum's permanent exhibition, the show stages the encounter between two different types of collections that complement and illuminate each other: a contemporary artistic position and a scientific fund.
Link to the exhibition at MAMCS
The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art has invited Stéphane Belzère to an encounter with the collection of the Strasbourg Zoological Museum (currently closed for renovation). In a room on the first floor of the MAMCS, the artist confronts around 200 glasses with the wet preparations of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates with his paintings and the installation Les Mains des Anges (The Hands of Angels), which was specially created for the Strasbourg show. For this participatory work-in-progress work, Belzère “conserves” hand casts, in the production of which he involves young visitors to the exhibition.
The title Flowing Worlds refers to the Japanese genre of art ukiyo-e (roughly “Pictures of the Flowing World”), which combines everyday themes with strongly codified painting. Stéphane Belzère designs his motifs in different formats and appearances, sometimes realistic, sometimes unfathomable. A constant in his work, on the other hand, is the intensive examination of light, color and transparency. The glass as an ordinary container for unusual things moves here between figuration and abstraction, fascination and disgust and is at the same time a scientific prop and an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the artist.
With this exhibition format, MAMCS is breaking new ground. As an interlude in the middle of the museum's permanent exhibition, the show stages the encounter between two different types of collections that complement and illuminate each other: a contemporary artistic position and a scientific fund.
Link to the exhibition at MAMCS
