Xavier Mary

BIO | SELECTED WORKS

Exhibition view MX TEMPLE, Xavier Mary, 2019, BPS22 Museum Charleroi. Courtesy of Baronian Xippas and the artist.

Exhibition view MX TEMPLE, Xavier Mary, 2019, BPS22 Museum Charleroi. Courtesy of Baronian Xippas and the artist.

The work of Liège-born, Brussels-based Xavier Mary (BE, 1982) oscillates between post-industrial sculpture and post-apocalyptic realism, his smart and street-savvy installations existing as powerful poetry for the motorised age. underpinned by a fascination with all things car-related, his practice celebrates the country’s automotive obsession in all its glory, repurposing disused and disregarded highway stalwarts to create a damning discourse of the modern and motorised civilisation.

Xavier Mary investigates the dialectics of the original and the copy. For his work ‘We Have the Same Scales’ the artist started from a plastic car logo he found in a car shop along Highway 175 from Oxaca to Puerto Escandido (Mexico). He then 3D scanned the logo and remade it on a large scale in aluminium, thus turning plastic into a noble material while making the copy the original and reducing the original to a mere copy. Even though Mary is strongly fascinated by all things car-related, in his work he does not shy away from implicitly critiquing the automobile business. Black Hole Sun for example (a work Mary produced for his solo exhibition at BPS22 in Charleroi) is inspired by the shape of the logo of Hino Motors, a Japanese company that produces heavy-duty trucks and buses. The title evokes a natural disaster rather than the company’s initial dream of achieving a balance between Hino’s advanced technologies and the environment. At its conception the logo was meant to show a sunrise on the horizon, but to Mary it represents both the sunrise and the sunset, reminding us that the end of our advanced technological society is at hand. Mary’s Muffler Sculpture is made out of pieces the artist bought in 2013 in Willet Point, better known as the ‘Iron Triangle’. In this industrial area in Corona (Queens, New York) the streets were heavily contaminated by toxic chemicals and broken cars lay scattered everywhere. After Mary’s passage, the place was demolished, wiped away, as if it had never existed. By making a sculpture with the pieces he bought and presenting it as a readymade in the gallery, the artist rehabilitated the car parts, and the people along with it. In a way, the sculpture is a symbol of innovation and progress on the one hand, and of pollution, injustice and decline on the other. When Xavier Mary uses car parts to make shiny, monumental, glorifying sculptures as objects to worship, ironically he pops the bubble of the all too convincing stories of accumulating power told by the automobile business.

His work has been exhibited at Palais des Beaux Arts, Bruxelles; WIELS Bruxelles; Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin; Galerie Albert Baronian, Bruxelles; La Maison Rouge, Paris, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen. His work is included in various private collections and museum collections, e.g. La collection de la Province du Hainaut, Musée d’Ixelles and Musée en Plein Air du Sart-Tilman.

In 2019 Xavier Mary has had his first solo museum exhibition where he took over the two large rooms of the BPS22, the Museum of Art of the Hainaut province, Belgium.

CV

Xavier Mary
Born in 1982, Liège
Lives and works in Brussels

Education

2002-06
Master Art, sculptures et installations, ERG, Bruxelles (B) 
Bachelor Art, sculptures, ERG, Bruxelles (B)

Solo Exhibitions

2019
Deepwater horizon, 1708 Gallery, Richmond (USA) 
MX Temple, BPS22 Museum, Charleroi (B)

2018
Abstract Machines & Fractal Ontology, Antwerp Art Pavilion, Antwerpen (B)
Jan Hoeft / Xavier Mary, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen (DE), w/ Jan Hoeft

2017
From Light to Dust, Ultrastudio, Pescara (IT)
The Enigma of Steel, Galerie Nosbaum Reading, Luxembourg (LU) 
We have the same Scale, Mélange, Cologne (DE), with/ Eva L’Hoest 
Snake Driver, Galerie Albert Baronian, Bruxelles (B)

2016
XMSL, Galerie Geukens-De Vil, Knokke (B) , w/ Simon Laureyns

2014
Over Drive, Galerie Albert Baronian, Bruxelles (B)

2013
Iron Triangle, APT Institute, New York (USA)
Eat The Magic Lions #2, Do Not Open Project Space, Brussels/Belgium.

2012
Petrolatum, Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin (DE)
Eat The Magic Lions, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (DE)

2010
Game Over, Galerie Baroninan-Francey, Bruxelles (B) 
Ortho Graphe, Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin (DE)

2009
One Man Show Art Bruxelles, Galerie Albert Baronian, Bruxelles (B) 
SPECIFIC PATTERN, Galerie Espace Uhoda, Liège (B)

2008
Arts 00+8, La médiatine, Bruxelles (B)

2007
Gantz Graf’, Witte Zaal, Gent (B), duo exhibition with Yves Coussement

2006
Highway Ravers, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels (B)

Group Exhibition

2020
‘ɔːtəˈmatɪk’, Galerie Barbé Urbain, Gent (B) 
UPLIFT, Galerie Xippas, Genève (CH)

2018
Dans le fond c’est très pragmatique, IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art, Eupen (B)
Electroplis, BPS22 Museum, Charleroi (B) 

Résurgences, Espace 251 Nord, Liège (B)

2017
Plant B, Molenbeek Sculpture Park, Bruxelles (B) 
Matellifère, CALCB, Centre d’art Contemporain du Luxembourg Belge, Buzenole (B)

2016
Les Sept Périls Spectraux, Galerie Arnaud Deschin, Paris (FR) 
From Here to Eternity, La Maison Particulière, Bruxelles (B) 
Stay Focused, Cookie Butcher, Antwerpen (B)
Panorama, BPS 22 Museum, Charleroi (B)
Dust as a new value, Villa Arson, Nice (FR)
The Emotional Junkie and the Cyborg Love, MuHKA, Musée d’art contemporain d’Anvers, Antwerpen (B)
Les lèvres nues, DOC, Paris (FR)
The Green Ray, Wilkinson Gallery, London (GB)

2015
Don’t Look a gift horse in the mouth, The Stable, Waregem (B) *S*W*I*M, In De Ruimte; Gent (B)
First summer show, Galerie Yoko Uhoda, Liège (B) 
Quand fondra la neige où ira le blanc, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris (FR)
Museo delle Palme, Museo delle Palme, Palermo (IT) 
To blow smoke in order to heal, Galerie Albert Baronian, Bruxelles (B)

2014
The square rectangle, Kunsthal Kade, Amersfoort (NL) 
Het Kanaal, Extra City Kunsthal Antwerpen
Antwerpen (Het Kanaal, Espace 251 Nord, Liège (B)
Trailers For The Future, Galerie Yoko Uhoda, Liège (B) 
Scoglio Di Cielo, L’A project space, Palermo (IT) 
Paradise Lost, Damien & The Love Guru, Bruxelles (B) 
Acid Rain, Island, Bruxelles (B)
Bande à Part, CAB Art Center, Bruxelles (B)
L’art Belge, Musée des beaux-arts de La Chaux-de- Fonds, Neuchâtel (CH)

2013
DEFINING SPACE, Die Bastei, Cologne (DE) Batterie, RAVI, Liège (B)

2012
Vinyl in the studio, Mu.ZEE, Oostende (B)
Who’s afraid by red, yellow and blue ?, La Maison Rouge, Paris (F)
Pop up, Ixelle Museum, Bruxelles (B)

2011
100 DRAWINGS AGAINST THE VIETNAM WAR, Le commisariat, Paris (FR) + Komplot, Bruxelles (B)
Nouvel Art de la Belgique III, Galerie Nagel, Berlin (DE) 
Family Plot, Galerie Baronian-Francey, Bruxelles (B) 
Pole Gry, Zachęta National Galerie,Varsovie (PL)

2010
Nouvel Art de la Belgique I, Galerie Nagel, Cologne (DE) 
Enlightenment, L40 BERLIN, Berlin (DE) 
Nouvel Art de la Belgique, Galerie Nagel, Antwerpen (B)

2009
Dialogique Parc, Bétonsalon, Paris (F)
Nothing is permanent, La centrale, Bruxelles (B)

2008
Un-scene, WIELS, Bruxelles (B)
Harder Than It Looks, MAGP, Cajarc (F)
Sculptural Proposition, Galerie Desimpel, Bruxelles (B) 
Utopia-Dystopia, W3 Kunst centrum, Vlissingen (NL) Utopia-Dystopia, Stedelijk Museum, Aalst (B)

Awards & Residencies / Résidences & prix

2018
Prix de sculpture, Fondation Marie Louise Jacques, Mazee (B)

2016
Residency RAVI, Liège (B)

2013-2015 
Residency Komplot, Bruxelles (B)

2015
Residency Museo delle Palme, Palermo (IT)

2014
Residency L’A project space, Palermo (IT)
ResidencyIR Antwerpen, Anvers (B)

2013
Residency APT Studios, Brooklyn, NY (USA)

2011
Residency Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (DE)

2009
Second Lauréat, Illy prize, Art Bruxelles, Bruxelles (B) 
Laureate Prix Jeune Artiste, Parlement de la communauté Française de Belgique

2005
Laureate Prix médiatine 2005