Charbel-joseph H. Boutros and Stéphanie Saadé
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, The last week of 2020, 2021, recycled paper, sun, 20 x 11.5 cm
The sun of the last week of 2020 on a recycled paper bought at Hema, Amsterdam.
Stéphanie Saadé, Monochrome à la Mine de Plomb (Graphite Monochrome), 2021, graphite powder, paper, glue, 40 x 29 cm, variation 1/3
An attempt to synthesize drawing that leads up to a grey image of the current times.
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros
b. 1981, Lebanon / Lives and works between Beirut and Paris
In his work invisibility is charged with intimate, geographical and historical layers, finding poetic lines that extend beyond the realm of existing speculations and realities. Being born amidst the Lebanese conflict, his art is not engaged in an explicit political and historical reflection, but is more accurately haunted by the said political and historical reflection.
H. Boutros was a resident at The Pavillon, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France and was a researcher at Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, The Netherlands. His first extensive institutional exhibition in Europe, The Sun Is My Only Ally was recently shown at S.M.A.K. Museum, Ghent, Belgium.
His work has been shown internationally at: The 12th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey / Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France / Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy / Centre Pompidou - Metz, France / S.M.A.K. Museum, Ghent, Belgium / Home Works 8, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut / CCS Bard College, New York, USA / 3rd Bahia Biennial, Salvador, Brazil / 1st Yinchuan Biennale, Yinchuan, China / CCA, Warsaw, Poland / More Konzeption Conception Now, Morsbroich Museum, Leverkusen, Germany / Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE / Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon / La Criée Centre for Contemporary Art, France / Marres, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
A permanent installation ‘Sueur d’étoile’, that he realized with the French étoile dancer Marie-Agnes Gillot, inaugurated in 2016 remains on view at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France. His works are in the collections of S.M.A.K. Museum, Ghent, Belgium / CNAP, Paris, France / Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE.
Stéphanie Saadé
b. 1983, Lebanon / Lives and works between Beirut, Paris and Amsterdam
The work of Stéphanie Saadé develops a language of suggestion, playing with poetics and metaphor. She shares clues, signs, imageless and occasionally silent trails with us, which interact like the words of a single sentence. It is for the viewer to decipher them, as would an archaeologist faced with traces, fossils, and fragments. This enigmatic quality often stems from the artist’s own experience. In her oeuvre, personal experience is invoked exclusively as a universal subject.
Stéphanie Saadé graduated in Fine Arts from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France and attended a post-graduate program at the China Academy of Arts, Hangzhou, China. She was an artist in residence at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (2014/2015), and the Cité Internationale des arts, Paris (2015). Saadé is the 2018-19 recipient of the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts) 3Package Deal program, a 1 year Interhistoricity scholarship linked to 4 renown museums and institutions of the city of Amsterdam.
She has had institutional solo exhibitions in Marres, House for Contemporary Culture (2021), in Maastricht, The Netherlands, Jameel Arts Centre (2021), in Dubai, UAE, Museum Van Loon (The Travels of Here and Now, 2019) in Amsterdam, Parc Saint Léger (Crossing States, 2018), and Maison Salvan (Destiny Without a Beholder, 2018) in France, Museum Van Loon (The Travels of Here and Now, 2019) in Amsterdam. Her work has also been exhibited at Punta della Dogana, Venice / MOCA Toronto / Les Abattoirs, Toulouse / La Criée, Rennes / Sharjah Biennale 13, Sharjah / MAXXI, Rome / MuHKA, Antwerp / Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel / National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavík / Oslo Kunstforening, Oslo / Ystad Konstmuseum, Ystad / Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard, New York / Marres, Maastricht / La Traverse, Centre d’Art Contemporain d’Alfortville, Alfortville / Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau / Mosaic Rooms, London / Casa Árabe, Madrid / Casa Árabe, Cordoba / La Conservera, Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Murcia / Home Works 7, Beirut / Parc Saint Léger hors les murs, Nevers / Van Eyck, Maastricht / Le 59e Salon de Montrouge, Montrouge / Beirut Art Center, Beirut / Beirut Exhibition Center, Beirut /A.M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah / Qalandyia International Biennial, Qalandyia.
Stéphanie Saadé’s works are in the collection of Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE, Saradar Foundation, Lebanon, MAXXI Rome, Italy and FMAC Paris, France.
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Night Archive, 2020, 1 Night Cartography, 1 cotton cover, heat, obscurity, dimensions variable
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Untitled until now, 2019 – 2021, neon, votive candle’s wax, light, 2.5x198 cm
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros,Night Cartography #1, 2017, blanket, dreams, fire, dimensions variable
In his Night Cartographies, Charbel-joseph H. Boutros uses a blanket for one night, which he thenburns in a slow and delicate manner, transforming it into a round-shaped territory, or a hole to capture dreams.
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, 2021, But even dead can dance, Love., paper, ashes, 65 x 50 cm
Ashes coming from a burned paper are applied on that same paper.
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Amitié, 2018, Stan Smith shoes, dimensions variable
Two new shoes from the same pair are separated, the left one was worn by the artist during his trips in Europe for 6 months. The right one was worn by his friends in Beirut. The two shoes are reunited for the exhibition.
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros,2019, votive candle’s wax, wishes, hopes, cut from an exhibition carpet, exhibition, 97 x 75 cm
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Night Cartography #3, 2016-2021, Airplane sleeping mask, votive candle wax, dreams, wishes, dimensions variable
Wax from votive candles (stolen from a church situated in the Lebanese mountains), is poured on an airplane sleeping mask, used by the artist for sleeping during several months.
Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, The Booth, The Gallerist and The Mausoleum, 2021, Photo, video, ipad, printed contact, frame, dimensions variable
Stéphanie Saadé, Space Habitability, 2021, 1360 grams of hand-glazed cast porcelain, dimensions and size of installation variable
Small porcelain pieces, with a weight equal to the artist’s pillow weight, are displayed on the ground. The porcelain pieces have been realized by Maastricht-based ceramic artist David Roosenberg.
Stéphanie Saadé, We’ve Been Swallowed by Our Houses, 2020, Aghabani embroidery on cotton cloth, 240 X 140 cm, Variation 2/3
During lockdown, the artist measured her apartment in Lebanon and drew a map of it, which she then turned into a navigable labyrinth. It is embroidered using a traditional technique composed of chain-stitches and spiral patterns.
Stéphanie Saadé, Digiprint, 29-11-2018, 2019, Inkjet print on paper, 130 x 73 cm, edition 3/5
The mobile phone screen of the artist is photographed. The fingerprints left on the smooth surface are captured.
Wind Rose, 2018, print on paper, 42 x 29.7 cm, edition 2/5
The 5 sides of the artist’s father’s hammer are printed. The traces and impacts left on the metal throughout the years appear, putting forward the fragile and sensitive side of the object.
Stéphanie Saadé, Sensitive Hammer, 2014, Aluminum, wood, paint, 27 x 9 cm, 5 x 2 cm
A hammer is made out of a sensitive metal, keeping the trace of every shock that it gives.
Stéphanie Saadé, Cut Color, 2014, cut and glued Faber Castell pencils, aluminum box, 19.6 x18.5x1 cm, variation 2/3
Colored pencils are cut in the middle. Reversing the way they were ordered in the box, they are assembled again.