×

Subscribe to our newsletter

Highlights From the Previous Week, Partnered Events and Haikus. View our Newsletter archive

Novelty LTD at La Verrière

Fondation d’entreprise Hermès La Verrière in Brussels presents a unique collaboration between two of the city’s artists, Douglas Eynon and Erwan Mahéo, until March 25.

Scroll right to read more ›
Text by Nadine Botha

“Quietly, over a number of years, Brussels – like Berlin before it – has established itself as a favoured destination for artists and other art professionals from across Europe and beyond: people for whom the city offers a fertile context for work on a different timescale, drawing on different impulses, all of which has contributed to the city’s fascinating, hybrid contemporary art scene,” writes curator Guillaume Désanges in the catalogue of Novelty LTD.

Désanges offers this geographic context to explain why she invited two artists with such seemingly different work – British painter, sculptor and video artist Douglas Eynon and Breton sculptor, video- and photographer, and textile artist Erwan Mahéo – to collaborate on the Novelty LTD exhibition atLa Verrière gallery. Simply put, they both live in Brussels and there’s something about these conditions of the city that is captured in the form and content of their work.

The result is remarkably architectural, transforming the La Verrière gallery of the Hermes Foundation spatially. Splitting the space is a large textile work with the plan of the gallery embroidered by Mahéo. Through a tunnel on the other side, Eynon’s Cloudforms is a surreal house of mirrors that creates a striking counterpoint to Mahéo’s erudite geometry.

“I have invited the two artists together because Douglas Eynon’s practice is poetic, while Erwan Mahéo’s programme is ballistic. But also because Erwan Mahéo is poetic in his de-realisation of the world, and because Douglas Eynon is ballistic in his capacity to touch the heart without words,” explains Désanges.

Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Douglas Eynon & Erwan Mahéo, “NOVELTY Ltd.” Exhibition view, La Verrière - Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, 2017
Back

Articles you also might like

La Galerie Patinoire Royale Bach presents Geneviève Levivier: Un Arbre á Soi, a solo show of 11 weavings and 4 large laser artworks, which are made with an innovative laser technique created by the artist. Levivier creates a dialogue between the manual and technical as well as with natural fibres and mixed media. Through her unique processes that build up and take away materials, her work refers to the growth of nature and its destruction. They are like a metaphor of life, which advances by adding experiences and the subtractive experience of time. All of the work is about finding the balance point between those extremes.

ceramic brussels opens its 2nd edition on January 23rd in the sheds of Tour & Taxis. The specialised art fair features 65 galleries and a schedule of talks and related events, including the ceramic brussels art prize award and a spotlight on Norwegian ceramics.

BRAFA 2025 celebrates its 70th edition this January, a milestone achievement for an art and antiques fair. Featuring 130 galleries from 16 countries, BRAFA will take place between January 26th – February 2nd, 2025 at the Brussels Expo.