Jester in Genk presents a duo exhibition with Julie Béna and Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel 

Jester presents Yesterday (when there were no jokes left to tell), the first institutional exhibition presenting the artistic practices of Julie Béna (°1982, FR) and Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel (°1992, FR/MA) in Belgium.

Jester is a new organisation that was founded through the merger of FLACC and CIAP, two Limburg-based organisations that have grown into vital players in the (inter)national arts field since the 1970s. In 2023, Jester landed in three new pavilions on the C-mine site in Genk, where Jester is hosting residencies, providing studios and workspaces and organising exhibitions, screenings and performances. Due to the unique history of this mining site and its neighbouring, multicultural cités, social, economic, demographic and ecological issues are deeply rooted in Jester's operation.

The exhibition Yesterday (when there were no jokes left to tell), curated by the new artistic director Koi Persyn, results from a dialogue between artists Julie Béna and Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel, and includes both new and existing artworks, of which Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel’s new body of work was developed during his residency in Jester.

The exhibition follows the structure of a tarot reading and mirrors the cards that were pulled for this project: The Wheel of Fortune, The Hanged Man and Death. These three cards are embodied by the spaces, the artworks and its premises while connecting the past, present and future as a vehicle to discuss and understand unresolved questions, both individual and collective. 

Yesterday (when there were no jokes left to tell) offers the stage of the exhibition space to the figure of the jester, who plays an important role in the artistic research of both artists, while transforming the space itself into a jester. Departing from the name of the organization, the attitude of this historical phenomenon is now embodied by (the format of) the exhibition, but also by the vernacular space itself, inhabiting the walls and extending to the architecture of the building. The jesters make their appearance and promptly enter the stage to manifest their attitude by attributing their revolutionary skills to the arts organization. Yesterday (when there were no jokes left to tell) thus introduces itself as an alter ego, a shapeshifter, a trickster and (above all) a jester, who welcomes you to discover the visual multiverses of Julie Béna and Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel. Who is this jester of yesterday?

Visual culture is currently being disrupted heavily by AI and censorship. Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel and Julie Béna weapon themselves with the graphical tropes of digital mass media as a survival mechanism for the rise of deep-fake imagery. Their artworks blur and balance on the thin border between digital and analogue, metaphor and statement, versatility and immobility, high and low culture, dream and reality, to carve out a space of opportunity for the jester to escape the fatigue, colondrum and hopelessness of today’s existence. Bouzoubaa-Grivel’s and Béna’s drawings, texts, sculptures and videos encourage the jester (and you) to leave the nightmare of yesterday behind, and to look forward to the dream of tomorrow. 

Julie Béna & Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel
​Yesterday (when there were no jokes left to tell)
​27 October 2024 - 19 January 2025
​Opening on 26 October at 13:00 ​
​Jester ​
​Schachtboklaan 11, 3600 Genk ​
​www.jester.be

​Press preview: Wednesday 23 October 2024, 11:00am
​Please confirm your attendance to micha@clubparadis.be

This exhibition is realized with the support of the Flemish Government, the City of Genk and the Czech Centre Brussels

Selection of works by Julie Béna

The Jester and Death, Julie Béna, film still, 2020

Selection of works by Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel

ABOUT JESTER

Jester is a meeting ground for the development and presentation of contemporary art where the jesters of the future live, work and share in Genk. The cross-pollination between residencies and exhibitions makes Jester a fertile soil for experimentation, research, innovation and exchange. Jester is an interlocutor who does not offer unequivocal answers, but enters into dialogue with outspoken and less heard voices. Jester listens attentively to artists and curators, thinkers and makers, neighbours and partners, to present society with a polyphonous but critical mirror. These unexpected encounters between artists and the community, underpin our generous and inclusive operation, where everyone is heard as well as questioned. 

Jester came into being in 2021 through the merger of FLACC and CIAP, two Limburg-based organisations that have grown into vital players in the (inter)national arts field since the 1970s. In 2023, Jester landed in three new pavilions on the C-mine site. Due to the unique history of this mining site and its neighbouring, multicultural cités, social, economic, demographic and ecological issues are deeply rooted in Jester's operation. Winterslag's landscape embodies its ability to generate and process energy, through its industrial past of coal mining, but also through its current concentration of cultural actors, among others, and its central location in the Euroregion, closeby Maastricht, Luik and Aachen. ​ From the Belgian periphery, Jester establishes new connections with this resilient ecosystem to (re)generate new energy in this thriving working, living, and presentation space.

Jester supports starting and international artists to further develop their practice and experiment with new media in our workshops for wood, metal, ceramic and digital production. Through technical, artistic and professional guidance, Jester encourages these future jesters to question themselves and the world. The different temporalities of development and presentation are inextricably intertwined and meet in an inspiring conversation between different artistic practices. The site around Jester is a developing area, which resonates with a dynamic and transformative programme structure where artists help shape the young organisation and its evolving physical and mental space. Just as Genk was known at the beginning of the 20th century as a station d'artistes - a favourite refuge for painters, scientists and writers - Jester welcomes dozens of international artists every year to meet and explore the scarred, post-industrial landscape together.

About Julie Béna

Julie Béna was born in 1982 in Paris, France, and currently lives and works between Prague and Paris. She is a graduate of the Villa Arson, Nice, and attended the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. In 2012–13, she was part of le Pavillon, the research laboratory of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. In 2018, she was nominated for the Prix AWARE women art prize.

Julie Béna’s work is made up of an eclectic set of references, combining contemporary and ancient literature, high and low art, humor and seriousness, parallel times and spaces. Comprising sculpture, installation, film, and performance, her work seems to often float in an infinite vacuum, unfolding against a fictional backdrop where everything is possible. Over the past years, Béna has developed a range of personal cosmologies in which she stages seemingly banal characters and objects that have enigmatic conversations and interactions with each other.

About Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel

Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel (°1992) is a French-Moroccan artist based in Paris. He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

For Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel, drawing is a meditative act, similar to traditional embroidery in which patterns emerge from repetitive gestures. By creatively harnessing the imperfections and limitations of his material, Bouzoubaa-Grivel discovers new forms, and digital gestures such as swiping and pinching also have a place in his artistic process. He combines typography and calligraphy with influences from North African Amazigh culture, biomorphism, and the abstract comics of Yūichi Yokoyama. From the interplay of these media, he creates his own visual language with forms that resemble letters and signs.

Header image: The Jester and Death, Julie Béna, film still, 2020