MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN - New York, USA
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Funk You Too!: Humor and Irreverence in Modern and Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture
group show
Born in 1978 in USA
Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, USA
Genesis Belanger stages psychologically charged mise-en-scènes composed of idiosyncratic versions of everyday objects. Working in a multitude of handcrafts — welder, ceramicist, and seamstress — Belanger conjures installations of unresolved tension on the edge of a temporal collapse. Her vocabulary is lifted from the 1950s, specifically from the dawn of American advertising, and she infuses her tableaux with a sense of lobotomized capitalist productivity, choosing liminal spaces, such hotel lobbies or office waiting rooms, as subject-matter. In Belanger's practice, the body is absent, inviting the viewer to enter as purposeful actor. In her immersive scenes, objects become surrogate for the female body: pursed lips emerge from matching stoneware lamps, fingers sprout from a bouquet, and a hot dog wiggles itself into a wedge heel. Belanger's three-dimensional work, although situated within the legacy of Claes Oldenburg and Robert Gober, is principally concerned with the manifestation of capitalist myths on a gendered psyche.
In 2021, Genesis Belanger was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Consortium in Dijon, France. In 2020, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, in Ridgefield, Connecticut dedicated a solo exhibition to her work and published a catalogue on the occasion. In 2019, Belanger created an installation in the New Museum’s Storefront Window, New York.
education
2012 Master of Fine Arts, Combined Media, Hunter College, New York, NY, USA
2004 Bachelor of Fine Arts, The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA
2002 Bachelor of Fine Arts coursework, Rhode Island School of Design, RI, USA
solo shows
2022
- Blow Out, Perrotin, Paris, France
2021
- Another Man's Treasure, Perrotin, Tokyo, Japan
- We Were Never Friends, The Consortium Museum, Dijon, France
2020
- The Party's Over, Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium
- Through the Eye of a Needle, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT, USA
2019
- Coins for the Ferrymen, François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Holding Pattern, New Museum, New York, NY, USA
2018
- A Strange Relative, Genesis Belanger & Emily Mae Smith, Perrotin, New York, NY, USA
2017
- Cheap Cookie and a Tall Drink of Water, Mrs. Gallery, Maspeth, NY, USA
group shows
2023
- Funk You Too!: Humor and Irreverence in Modern and Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY, USA
- Pleasure Principle, curated by Genesis Belanger, François Ghebaly, New York, NY, USA
- Day Jobs, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX, USA
2022
- Mirror Mirror: Fashion and the Psyche, MoMu Fashion Museum, Antwerp, Belgium
- Les Fleurs du Mâle, Musée d'Art Naïf Anatole-Jakovsky, Nice, France
- Finger Bang, curated by Genesis Belanger and GaHee Park, Perrotin, Paris, France
- Performing Femininity, Mrs. Gallery, New York, NY, USA
- Marinaro, New York, NY, USA
- WOMEN, ARKEN Museum of Moderne Art, Ishøj, Denmark
- Sausage Party, Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium
2021
- Anniversary, Mrs. Gallery, New York, NY, USA
- Clay Pop, Jeffrey Deitch Inc, New York, NY, USA
- The Shoo Sho, curated by Julie Curtiss, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY, USA
- Bitter Nest, Perrotin, Tokyo, Japan
- Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany
- Time Takes a Cigarette, Josh Lilley, London, UK
2020
- Artists for New York, Hauser & Wirth, New York, NY, USA
- Good Pictures, Jeffrey Deitch Inc, New York, NY, USA
- A Love Letter to a Nightmare, Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2019
- Dark Laughter, curated by Barry Schwabsky, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, UK
- Magnetic Fields, curated by Cecilia Alemani, Gió Marconi Gallery, Milan, Italy
- No Patience For Monuments, Perrotin, Seoul, South Korea
- Group Show, Howard’s, Athens, GA, USA
2018
- Distortions, Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, NY, USA
- Liquid Dreams, François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Objects Like Us, curated by Amy Smith-Stewart and David Adamo, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT, USA
- Uncanny Memories, Sophia Contemporary Gallery, London, UK
- Body So Delicious, Reyes Projects, Birmingham, MI, USA
2017
- Genesis Belanger, Melissa Brown, Roy de Forest, Mimi Gross, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2016
- Scarlet Street, Lucien Terras, New York, NY, USA
- Happiness and Other Forms of Self Delusion, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY, USA
- Frida Smoked, Invisible Exports Gallery, New York, NY, USA
- Nature/Gesture, Project Art Space, New York, NY, USA
- Spring Break/Art Fair, New York, NY, USA
public collections
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL, USA
