L’Heure de la Soupe

17.09.2021–10.03.2022
Vernissage: 16.09.2021, 20–22:00

Alexis Gautier's work is often created in dialogue with other people. Starting from an interest in cultural transactions, he focuses on exchange, coincidence and the thin line between fact and fiction. Encounters, discoveries or misunderstandings thus form a creative space within which his work emerges in a collective context. The research process is documented in sculptures, video, textiles and performances, all reflecting on the notion of exchange and value, as well as on authorship and the protocols of exhibition-making.

Tickets are free and can be booked here.

The exhibition at M is conceived by the artist as a sequence of multiple chapters and movements. Gautier invites different people, including an museum attendant, an artist, an artisan and a neighbour of M to be simultaneously protagonists and co-authors of the exhibition's script. He makes room for a polyphony where a reality can emerge collectively, through collaborations, identity slippages and collisions.

In this sense, 'L’Heure de la Soupe' is seen by the artist as a light-sensitive film roll on which different scenes, gestures or interventions can leave a trace. Throughout the space and the duration of the exhibition, a dynamic narrative emerges that enters into dialogue with the practice, customs and mechanisms of the museum. Drawing on his interest in processes and models of collaboration, Gautier brings new artworks in an installation tailored to the space at M.

In addition to the exhibition, M, CIAP Genk and the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp are publishing a new book, designed by Nico Dockx.

In 2022, Gautier will show work at CIAP Genk that is closely related to his exhibition at M.

Alexis' work is also currently on view M’s group exhibition 'The Constant Glitch'. The textile works on display were made by weavers in India and Nepal, who freely interpreted Gautier's open instructions and translated them into their own practices.

Alexis Gautier (b. 1990, France) lives and works in Brussels and Brittany. He studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt Am Main (Germany) and is currently a researcher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. He has shown his work at BOZAR (Brussels, 2017), Blue Mountain School (London, 2018), Basis (Frankfurt Am Main, 2019), ISLAND (Brussels, 2020), The New Wight Biennial (Los Angeles, 2020), MANIFESTA (Marseille, 2020), Goethe-Institut (Dublin, 2021) and at M Leuven in the group exhibition The Constant Glitch (Leuven, 2021). He is supported by the Fondation des Artistes and the Günther-Peill Foundation. In 2022, Gautier will become an artist in residence at WIELS, The Center for Contemporary Art in Brussels.

With the support of the French Embassy in Brussels (within the framework of EXTRA) and LVD Group

M Leuven
Leopold Vanderkelenstraat 28
3000 Leuven
Belgium