“Owner? Tenant?”, 2023.

Invited by Huberty & Breyne Gallery, Brussels.

In 2023, Brussels gallery Huberty & Breyne, historically committed to promoting comics through exceptional exhibitions of original plates by artists such as Morris, Franquin, Schuitten, Mœbius, De Crécy, Matthieu and Larcenet, invited Gilles Barbier. The artist, whose work has always had a close relationship with the 9th Art, decided to delve into his own career and, with ” Propriétaire, Locataire? “, created an exhibition highlighting his links with comics.

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In the Belgian gallery space, he reveals his influences and references, highlights his borrowings from specific narrative constructions, and recounts his passion for this long-neglected art form, drawing on his prolific output and childhood memories. From superheroes to references to Lucky Luke and Asterix, from visual gags to phylacteries, from cheeky freedom to the magazines of his youth. With his stubborn mixing of genres and cultures, he unfurls the evidence of productive appropriation in a rigorous construction. ” Propriétaire, Locataire” (Owner, Tenant ), the title given by Gilles Barbier to this exhibition, reminds us in Dickian terms (*) that the references, memories and concepts that animate us are often located in that blurred space where what qualifies the original is often diluted in the hypothesis of fiction.

(*) Philip K. Dick, author of science-fiction novels.

Presentation text for the exhibition “Owner?Tenant?” at Huberty & Breyne Gallery, Brussels.