carlier | gebauer is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work by Belgian artist Michel François. This is his thirteenth exhibition with the gallery and his first exhibition at carlier gebauer’s Madrid location.

Michel François’ works form an elusive alphabet, the syntax of which shifts according to the site of exhibition and their confrontation with other objects. His practice thereby articulates a web of ever-fluctuating connections and connotations—a permanent work in progress. A rhizomatic logic pervades his artistic production, which resists hierarchies among objects and instead privileges moments of encounter, relation, and contingency. As Deleuze and Guattari write of the rhizome, François’ ephemeral installations are “always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo.”

François’ practice often recycles forms and materials as a means of foregrounding how we make and unmake our world, reflecting how we transform matter into meaning. For A Very Brief Eternity, his first solo exhibition in Madrid, François will present his installation Retenue d’encre [Ink Retainment] alongside the work Instant Drawing. A suspended sculpture featuring nearly three-hundred ink-filled bags counteracts a cube of charred wood fixed to a white wall, which blocks the end of a thick charcoal line. With their humble materials, which contain fleeting traces of
human action, these works articulate latent spaces of possibility and transformation.

A Very Brief Eternity

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