Wesley Meuris
Wesley Meuris designs and manufactures sculptures from generic forms, at the crossroads of architecture, design and exhibition scenography : museum showcases, zoo cages, picture rails, pedestals and pedestals, stands and platforms, archive furniture. His 1:1 scale creations often merge with the surrounding space, trapping for a moment the visitor who thinks they are replicas of existing objects. But the forms are hollow, the showcases and cages are empty, the drawers impossible to open: ” My goal is not to show the content but the context and structure that exposes it “, says Meuris in line with Michael Asher’s conceptual adage ” context as content “.
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But what characterizes Meuris’ work is the sensitive and visual dimension of the container he makes, whose materiality and beauty rarely transforms it into a container, which fills the void it seemed to designate. Contrary to all expectation in the face of an approach that one might believe to be only conceptual, Meuris’ work is characterized by the manual, even artisanal, construction of sculptures that he makes entirely himself, without borrowing existing elements: “I need to make these objects in order to be able to talk about their reality, without any intermediary”. After his art studies, the artist began training as a carpenter in a prefabricated building company where he learned to master technical engineering, management strategies and industrial design. Both project manager and master builder, he is the author, technician and manufacturer of all the diagrams, technical plans and volumes used in his work, from cutting to space setting.
Wesley Meuris’ work has made several important exhibitions and individual installations at the Centre Pompidou (2018), the Musée des Arts Contemporains du Grand Hornu (2017), the Kunsthalle in Vienna (2016), the Confort Moderne in Poitiers (2016), the Mu. Zee d’Oostende (2015), the Espace JeudiJeudi in Geneva (2015), the BF15 in Lyon (2014), the Kunsthalle Rotterdam (2014), the Casino du Luxembourg (2012), the SMAK in Ghent (2005), the Royal Academy in Brussels (2010), the Centre de Création De Bond in Bruges (2010), the Fresnoy in Tourcoing (2010), the MAMAC in Liège (2010), the Art & Essai Gallery in Rennes (2010).
Numerous publications, essays and articles have been devoted to him, with contributions from Michel Dewilde, Lieven Van Den Abeele, Eva Wittocx, Jean Marc Huitorel, Florence Ostende, Christophe Kihm, Jean-Marc Poinsot, Dominque Poulot, Thierry Dufresne, Ida Soulard, etc.
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Exhibitions at the Gallery
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Wesley Meuris, À L’Enseigne
10 Oct. - 20 Nov. 2020
Drawing by Numbers
January 27 – March 3, 2018
Wesley Meuris, The Agency
October 1st - 30, 2016
Matérialisme Hystérique
October 18 - November 29, 2014
