GENESIS BELANGER: IN THE RIGHT CONDITIONS WE ARE INDISTINGUISHABLE
Pace is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of works by Genesis Belanger, In the Right Conditions we are Indistinguishable, in London at its Hanover Square gallery.
October 9 – November 9, 2024
For In the Right Conditions we are Indistinguishable, Belanger probes the shifting complexities of self-curation, domestic labor, and our relationship with nature through fourteen new sculptural groups. These works, rendered in the artist’s most saturated palette to date, mark an exciting evolution of subject and material in Belanger’s practice.
Working across porcelain and stoneware, metal, wood, and painting, New York based Genesis Belanger creates tableaux that draw from, and critique, the aesthetics of capitalist production and consumption. Her work is characterized by an idiosyncratic visual language that repurposes everyday objects into often seductive, yet unsettling, surrogates for human emotions and societal anxieties. Informed by her experience as a prop-styling assistant, Belanger’s installations mimic the semiotic strategies of advertising—using beauty, nostalgia, and humor to evoke psychological responses. Yet, in Belanger’s hands, these familiar symbols are recontextualized, shifting from tools of persuasion to agents of critical reflection.
Throughout the installations, symbols of fecundity and fulfilment call attention to the body as an instrument of consumption. Fruits and cakes, rendered in a state of near-grotesque perfection, straddle the line between the delicious and the disturbing. The symbolism extends to the motif of pills, whose coloring mirrors those of the cakes. This juxtaposition underscores the duality of consumption—where nourishment and medication, pleasure and necessity, coexist in tension. Pills, as objects, are deeply personal yet ubiquitous, representing both the promises of modern medicine and the burdens of a society increasingly reliant on pharmaceutical solutions. In Belanger’s work, these pills become symbols of the extreme measures we take to manage and escape the pressures of contemporary life.
In addition to ceramics, Belanger has incorporated a range of materials—fabric, wood, metal—into her new sculptures. By articulating her conceptual investigations through the very medium of her work, Belanger sharpens her exploration of how context shapes our understanding of nature, labor, and identity.