M HKA Ensembles

Installation

Jacques Charlies is self-thought, and closely studies art history, the art market and the current clichés about the avant-garde since the beginning of his artistic career. By teaching himself various artistic techniques and styles, he tries to break through the mythical nature of today’s art(market) in his works.

For Middle Gate Geel ’13, the artist used many images, pictures and objects from both his personal day to day surroundings as well as from the public surroundings. These materials were put together in one space giving the viewer the feeling of a misère scène that was tinkered with.

As early as the early sixties, he started creating mise-en-scènes, usually with disregarded objects. In these installations he would regularly use pictures as a reaction to the reigning culture of Pop Art and Nouveau Realism and the mass consumerism and the throw away culture of our society. In the eighties he infused his works with satire and mockery against the prevailing art world: old and forgotten paintings would receive the signature of a made up artist; he would analyse the biographies of artist in details and write art criticism, only to sign with the name of a made up art critic. Due to his typical staging of women (both in pictures and paintings) and his satirical view of the world, Charlier is often compared with Félicien Rops, also called the “devilish artist of the 19th century”