This artwork is a simple yet striking piece, featuring a large rectangular block of weathered, textured brown stone or wood. The rugged, natural surface of the material dominates the composition, creating a sense of earthy, tactile presence. The overall form is minimalist and geometric, exhibiting a strong emphasis on materiality and the inherent qualities of the medium. The artist's technique seems to involve minimal intervention, allowing the inherent properties of the chosen material to take center stage. This austere, elemental work likely reflects the artist's interest in exploring the expressive potential of raw, unadorned natural materials within a contemporary artistic context. ...
Morgan Courtois is a sculptor who occasionally integrates imagery into his work, and focuses on exploring the "potential or the pathetic part of materials." Courtois often uses plaster, clay, and resin in his creations, in which he disrupts the materials stability to create an ambiguous status that blurs the line between animate and inanimate. Drawing inspiration from his previous occupation as a gardener, Courtois is fascinated by the rhythm and functional properties of flowers. In his exhibition ‘décharge’ (2022), he displayed an extensive collection of porcelain vessels, such as alcohol bottles, fragrance bottles, water bottles, and vases. Courtois attributes meaning to these everyday objects, imbuing them with an autonomous existence and elevating them to the level of possessing a soul. By creating ghostly ceramic replicas of these containers, he underscores their uselessness and transforms these objects into works of art that surpass their original function. Courtois also creates perfumes that evoke the poetic connection between materials, events, and sensations. ...
Balice Hertling was founded in 2007 by Daniele Balice and Alexander Hertling. Balice Hertling has hosted the debut solo shows of many artists like Camille Blatrix, Xinyi Cheng and Isabelle Cornaro—all of whom have gone on to earn widespread recognition. From 2012 to 2016, gallery founders Daniele Balice and Alexander Hertling operated a project space in Manhattan. Returning to France in 2017, they relocated the main gallery to Paris’ Marais district and transformed the former Belleville location into a space for curated projects and shows by younger artists. Indeed, many artists represented by the gallery exemplify unique subcommunities of the emergent art world. This breadth of representation also translates to a breadth of medium, as the gallery represents painters as well as artists working in mixed media such as film, performance and sculptural objects. The gallery also represents artists whose careers are more established : British conceptual artist Stephen Willats, Syrian-born painter and sculptor Simone Fattal, and Italian artist Enzo Cucchi. In its programming and practices, Balice Hertling constantly works toward creating a more diverse and equitable art landscape. In this spirit, the gallery is proud to represent the Estate of Behjat Sadr, who was the first woman artist to be recognized as a modern master in Iran. As a result of the pandemic, the gallery co-founded « Palai » in the summer of 2021, a yearly exhibition hosting a small group of galleries from around the world, in historic locations in Lecce, a city in Italy's Puglia region. Palai is neither a curated exhibition nor a fair, it is thought to be a version of a residency, a collegial collaboration, where artists, galleries, and friends of the art world come together. In 2021 Balice Hertling relocated and brought closer both spaces in the Marais with a new main space inaugurated by a Ser Serpas scultpure solo show, and a new showroom and project space on rue de Montmorency. ...
