Eva Steynen Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Benoît Felix's third solo exhibition, "Voir que ça tient." Felix's exhibitions are always a feast for thought and vision. In his oeuvre, he playfully demonstrates how the drawing becomes an object. He does this through a variety of cut-out drawings that take on an autonomous existence in the space, as well as video and 'objects trouvés'. After completing his art studies in Brussels, Felix studied Lacanian psychoanalysis. This influences his work to this day, both his engagement with current issues and his research into "language," "body," and "image," and how these can be expressed in his work.
Benoît Felix : “ I don't know. That's my starting point. Or rather, my starting line. It's as if I had to draw a line through knowing what I was going to do in order to begin. What I saw in that line was a drawing—not the drawing of something—rather the mark of a negation? That of a separation from what would otherwise have held me back from doing? This line drawn in front of me (most often at my feet) was also an edge: the edge of something that could then happen.
It is perhaps also as if I had to trace for myself the horizon towards which I was moving. Let me illustrate with this event: I am splitting wood for the winter. Suddenly something is there, there in front of me: "See that it holds." One of these pieces of wood, by the particular form it has taken - a form of resistance - stops me in my enterprise - that of splitting, breaking, cutting, reducing. It is a presence that I recognize there - and at the same time the destructive dimension of my enterprise appears to me: I suddenly say to myself that it would be good if others besides me could also see the destructive dimension of their enterprise and therefore stop.
What I suddenly see is that "It holds." It's actually the same thing I say to myself in the studio when suddenly what I was working on is imposed on me as - let's say the work - cutting, reducing, making holes, stretching it differently to the wall or to the space to see if it wouldn't look better... No, no! The question is suddenly no longer whether it's better: it's there.
What's there is neither better nor worse than anything else; it's there. "Voir que ça tient," "Templum," but also "Concetto spaziale," you'll see, it's a series of encounters. While I thought I was busy with something else entirely, it's also suddenly, faced with the obvious fact that I was making art, that I suddenly find myself there in front of it? And what do I see? I see that I didn't know.”
Welcome to the FiINISSAGE on FRIDAY 31 OCTOBER from 6 - 9pm
Artists: Benoît Felix
