April 24, 2025 |
There’s something special about the Hermès store that sits nestled behind the leafy trees and in between the other members of fashion’s upper class on Brussels’ Boulevard de Waterloo. Aside from the orange-hued interiors, which are personal to that specific store and highlight the most recognisable characters in Hermès luxurious lore (Birkins and Kellys sit proud in glass boxes, equestrian-inspired drawings are framed overhead and the whole gamut of the house’s expansive métiers, of which there are 16, are displayed for perusal), this store is also home to La Verrière. The white-walled cube, which sits at the store’s rear end (acting also as an annex), sports an impressive, prism-shaped glass roof that gives the space its name (La Verrière translates to The Glass Roof/Window). It’s one of four exhibition spaces run by Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, the house’s philanthropic arts arm, with the others finding their place in Seoul, Tokyo and Moselle. With the Fondation priding itself on providing long-standing support to the visual arts and to young artists especially, La Verrière and its counterparts are integral to its purpose, and are treated as such.
Joël Riff, the Fondation’s in-house curator since 2023, all but lights up when he talks about this mission. Stating that he doesn’t want “to be the guy who gives all the answers, only the one who provides the context,” Riff says that the Fondation “is an open platform [that] highlights all the individualities [of the artists] as well as how they can come together as a community.” This idea is key to Riff’s concept of the “augmented solo” exhibition – something he has put into practice since the start of his tenure. This also shapes La Verrière’s latest exhibition, Aster, Paris-based artist Eva Nielsen’s first international solo exhibition.
“I don’t want to exclude or isolate. I want to gather,” Riff says of the “augmented solo”, which allows one artist to be the exhibition’s focus whilst being complimented by others stationed around the space. In this instance, it’s upcycled furniture by Belgian artist and designer Arnaud Eubelen, a geometric steel work by pioneering German sculptor Charlotte Posenenske and a piece of writing by landscape agency Etablissement that encourages viewers to try see their surroundings differently. “Without this solo group show, it would take much longer to showcase each artist. The unity [of their work] also builds an intensity,” says Riff. “Eva had this great metaphor of comparing it to origami. [It’s like letting the exhibition concept] unfold as you come into contact with all the different elements.”
Nielsen, who grew up on the outskirts of Paris, uses her work to explore the liminal space between the real and surreal. Her means of doing so is by creating wasteland landscapes using paint, photography and screenprinting, distorting them to play with the viewers’ ideas on perspective. All of the pieces, including a particularly impressive triptych that covers almost all of the space’s back wall, were created specifically for the exhibition. “I like the fact that the landscape can be something else,” says Nielsen of the pieces that depict landscapes that have been stretched and scraped to resemble scenes which recall futuristic wastelands. “We all have our own projections onto the landscape that only we see. I notice that people sometimes say to me, ‘I think this is from this particular place’, but it’s not the case. This inspires me. And as I grew up in the suburb of Paris, there are all these different things to look at, and they are constantly changing which directly inspires me too. It’s all part of the puzzle of my paintings.”
The other contributors selected echo Nielsen’s artistic perspective with ease. The exhibition doesn’t feel forced at all; almost like the four featurees have worked together for years, each in a constant and symbiotic exchange of ideas that has in turn produced this exhibition. In reality, many of them hadn’t met before. Eubelen uses a mixture of discarded natural and man-made materials to explore the space between sculpture and design, forcing viewers to question what makes an object in the same way Nielsen questions what makes a landscape. Posenenske’s displayed work, a series of steel sheets that can be changed to form different geometric shapes, poses another type of question about what mass standardisation means for society. The bow that ties it all together is the Etablissement-written piece entitled Landscapes which acts as the foreword for a printed book that accompanies each one of Riff’s exhibitions (they’re free for the public to take, with past editions so popular Riff has run out). Notably not mentioning Nielsen or any of the other artists, Landscapes poses the question “what might tomorrow’s landscape look like in the heart of the metropolis,” encouraging readers to ponder “what kind of landscape, whether infrastructural or natural, would take shape.” Each acting as a separate thread in this complex yet complimentary tapestry woven by Riff, the works blend together like a faultless recipe.
Running until July 26, Aster is an fascinating exploration of interactions; how one interacts with landscapes, with materials and how those ideas can create art that not only makes you ask questions, but also pleases in its aestheticism. Once you’ve got your head around that, it’s then time to ask how each artwork interacts with the others, and what conclusions this might allow you to draw about your own grasp on perception. It’s a display that encourages pensiveness, but not one that forces you in any particular direction. It’s multilayered, and to peel back each one is a true delight.
Photography courtesy of Fondation d’entreprise Hermès.
