Alexis Gautier, Riding High in the Reading Saddle

About

Alexis Gautier’s work explores the relationships at play in cultural transactions, collaborations and the creation of narratives. Often made with other individuals, his work creates a space for exchanges and appropriation, weaving encounters, discoveries and misunderstandings. Gautier documents his research and interventions through textiles, sculptures, videos, narrations and drawings. 

In Riding High in the Reading Saddle, Gautier continues to experiment with ways of forfeiting control in order to make room for unexpected connections and collaborations; this time, by taking up the position of a passenger. He uses a motorbike as a vehicle for both literal and narrative transportation, a MacGuffin, tying in different protagonists and plot threads: from local histories of biker communities and the landscape painters’ colony, to broader themes of drift, identity, and belonging. The motorbike functions both as a constraint and an instrument to make drawings with and on. Gautier’s sketch for Richard Tuttle’s installation, realised as part of his show in Leuven, is executed outdoors by a motocrosser, while the artist presents a new series of drawings, made in the saddle of a moving motorbike. 

These encounters and interventions are documented through sculptures, videos, and drawings, displayed in the industrial interiors of the former mine building in Winterslag, and on the surrounding grounds. Much like the reader-rider evoked by Calvino, the viewer is invited to take the reins and make their way through the story, or rather multiple, nested stories.

Guided tour: Sunday, 07.08, 4 p.m.

During the finissage of Riding High in the Reading Saddle, join us for the guided tour of the exhibition.Jester’s artistic director Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg will be your guide through the work of Alexis Gautier and the unique indoor and outdoor spaces at the C-mine site. The meeting point is the visitor’s desk at C-mine.

Bio

Alexis Gautier (FR) is currently a resident at WIELS (Brussels). He graduated from the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main (DE) and from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Antwerp (BE). He had solo exhibitions at Museum M Leuven (2021), ISLAND (Brussels, 2020), Basis (Frankfurt Am Main, 2019), Blue Mountain School (London, 2018) and BOZAR (Brussels, 2017). He was awarded the Günther-Peill Stiftung (Düren, DE) and is supported by the Fondation des Artistes (Paris, FR) and by the Flemish Community.