Charbel-joseph H. Boutros at Galeria Jaqueline Martins | Brussels
The exhibition “Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Untitled till now” provides a self-portrait of the Lebanese artist as pieced collectively via 4 works. For Life variation #3, the marbles, the ring and the continents (all works 2022), Boutros inserted fragments of a single gold ring—his personal marriage ceremony ring—into 5 massive marble slabs, every from a distinct nation the place the artist has lived. Alongside the opposite components, Boutros lists “displacement,” “love,” and “hopes,” as a part of the work, suggesting the tip of a wedding as simply one other attainable “variation” of 1’s private timeline. A portrait, Maastricht populates a cascading pedestal with an assortment of on a regular basis objects— a single glove, a pair of white sneakers, a medication field—lined in wax. These things got to the artist by numerous strangers for whom they held symbolic worth. Now, coated in melted votive candles sourced from the artist’s mom’s church in Lebanon, they appear to be petrified, outdoors time.
Untitled till now dismantles the neon lights of the gallery and covers them with the identical wax. For the final work, An exhibition round your neck, Boutros created a necklace from marble blocks, with a brand new chunk added after every day of the present. The supplier should proceed to put on the necklace, even because it grows heavier over time. Mixed, these works query notions of magnetism and gravity: Towards what and to whom are we attracted? What weight do we stock with us?
— Yoann Van Parys
