Barbé Urbain Gallery presents a solo show by Flexboj & L.A.
Barbé Urbain Gallery presents the first gallery solo exhibition by the Belgian artist duo Flexboj & L.A. (°1995). It is also the first solo exhibition to take place in all three spaces of the renovated gallery.
The exhibition, titled "Alimentation Générale," presents some twenty new paintings that combine a direct, quick and suggestive way of painting with other approaches, techniques, textures, supports, types of paint and subjects.
We recognize motifs, drawing styles, use of colour and other elements from comic strips, the advertising world or the work of painters like Sigmar Polke, Walter Swennen and Martin Kippenberger, but more as ‘form’, building blocks, bricks than as ‘content’. Not as a homage or bewailment, not as a postmodern appropriation, but as an exploration of the possibilities of painting.
Since the subject of the painting is not the main focus of Flexboj & L.A. - rather the painting itself and the exploration of the medium - we discover a variety of aesthetics within their work. In the painting process, they try to explore all possible ways of 'applying paint', while constantly asking themselves what the 'how, what and why' of the painting is. The image loses importance and the painting gets the chance to come to the fore.
There is this painting representing a wooden, hand-built car. The vehicle is conjured up by adding white paint to a blue background. Above the horizon line, the edges of the planks are indicated by unpainted blue stripes, which appear between the added white areas. Below the horizon line, they are represented by lines of white paint on top of the blue. Because we are given a three-quarter view of the car, this level division has the effect of making it look lopsided, thereby creating a painting. On a different work, we find "nazo nazo," meaning "riddle," in Japanese letters, which the duo found on a package of Crackerjack popcorn from the 1950s.
It was 2018 when the publication of the first issue of Superstars Magazine brought Flexboj & L.A. crashing headlong into the art world through a side door. Their A-3-format magazine contained conversations with successful people from the art world with a view to fathoming the secret foundations of their success. This was followed in 2019 by the second and probably the last issue of Superstars Magazine, which was released in the INBOX space at M HKA. All the illustrations were painted by Flexboj & L.A., not only portraits of the people interviewed, but also advertisements for adult toys and businesses of artist friends.
Flexboj & LA
Alimentation Générale
02.10 - 07.11.2021
Barbé Urbain Gallery
Curated by Hans Theys
Based on a text by Hans Theys
