ONE FOR ME AND ONE FOR MY FRIEND | GENESIS BELANGER
On a table with delicate but dark tones, a series of vases and bottles are presented accompanied by flowers, sweets, used matches and a sole. One for Me and One for My Friend, a series of sculptures created by Genesis Belanger, presents itself to the viewer as a surreal vision of a cartoon or a reality that is abstracted from our normal perception of everyday life. by combining different materials, the artist creates a composition of objects that apparently have nothing to do with each other and which seem to stay together thanks to disconnected links: in an empty bottle a flower modeled with soft and rounded lines, to its right a medicine box and even further to the right, a vase does not contain a flower but, instead, a würstel, always the same vase is decorated with an American donut enriched with candied fruit and pink icing. A little further on the table, from two fluffy sweets come out blue sausages, next to them a burnt match. The composition plays with a series of symbols and references close to American culture that the artist also uses to create an emotional awakening of the objects in an ironic and fun key: thanks to these new unexpected combinations, everyday object is as if animated by a new life and it wouldn’t surprise us if at any moment they start talking to the viewer.
These pastel-toned sculptures bring with them very clear references: instinctively the donut makes one think of the Simpsons and also the stylization of the various elements brings the true thought back to the animated world of Matt Groening, perhaps Bart is hiding under the table ready to make one of the his jokes. However, Genesis Belanger also refers in a very open way to the visual vocabulary of the Fifties, especially in the choice of subjects: mayonnaise tartare and sad dishes, placed on checkered tablecloths. The surreal and grotesque world that the artist builds in these installations amazes for the closeness, given by the extremely everyday subjects, but also for the sense of embarrassment that they generate in the observer: the subtle sexual hints (the donut crossed by the sausage) and the macabre aspects of American culture (medicines arranged on the lunch table) are hidden inside the softness of the lines to unfold a much more psychologically complex picture than it appears. Just like the jokes of the Simpsons characters, Belanger’s works also entertain but with the interior of dwelling on man’s fragility: making the observer leave his comfort zone thanks to a phallic reference or a nod to drug addiction, the cultural values of our age are approached with a new spirit.
The dinner set up by Belanger seems to be a dinner in which for the first time you introduce your partner to your family and promptly each of your relatives is able to deeply embarrass you, leading you to look for excuses, or ways out to be able to justify certain circumstances or attitudes. One for Me and One for My Friend is a choral work in which dreams, frustrations, digressions are mixed to invite thoughts to dinner and, between one laugh and another, accept the dark areas of our culture with bitterness and cynicism.
Genesis Belanger
One for Me and One for My Friend
Stoneware, porcelain, cotton covered plywood, powder coated steel
122 x 109 x 109 cm | 48 x 43 x 43 inch
Courtesy of the artist and François Ghebaly Gallery, Photo Pauline Shapiro
08/04/2023