Galerie Christophe Gaillard Paris is pleased to present its first exhibition of work by Philippe Vandenberg (Belgium, 1952–2009), an artist renowned in Belgium and internationally, in partnership with the Estate of Philippe Vandenberg. This is the artist’s first personal exhibition in France since he was shown at Maison Rouge with Berlinde De Bruyckere (Il me faut tout oublier) in Paris in 2014.
In January 2009 [1], shortly before his death, Philippe Vandenberg claimed to prefer the title of “witness for the prosecution” to painter or artist; the word “attempts” to “work”.
The remarkable drawing (Untitled, 2007–08) more than four metres in length and most of the work we have chosen to show at the gallery were presented in 2020 at BOZAR (Centre for Fine Arts), Brussels, in the “Molenbeek”, exhibitiondedicated to Philippe Vandenberg’s last work on paper. On large sheets placed on the floor of his huge workshop in the working class neighbourhood of Brussels, Vandenberg drew and interwove bright and colourful words. Repeated like slogans or mantras, these fun, childlike and farcical phrases gradually reveal the violence of the world around him as well as the artist’s private, existential worry – and the urgent need to say them”.
[1] In the Hans Theys film, Witness for the Prosecution, January 2009. All the following quotes are from the film.
