Exhibitions

We are pleased to announce our newest vitrine exhibition with the New York-based Spanish painter Cristina de Miguel.

As a young master of gesture carving her space within neo-expressionist painting, Cristina presents an open-ended dialogue exploring emotional and intuitive expression through the physicality of paint. She employs a vivacious yet intentional looseness in her brushstrokes, depicting bodies suspended in motion in complex interpersonal interactions.

Cristina’s energetic colorscapes often encompass a plethora of characters; some in song and dance, others riding scooters, flying, or napping. There is an inquisitive nature to the process, a methodical call-and-response in the gestural build-up of the picture plane.

Working with a certain velocity, in swift and continuous motion, de Miguel seamlessly embraces chanceful encounters while employing a variety of media in various thinned out and tapped in states.

The exhibition remains on view through August 2023.

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Cristina de Miguel (b. 1987, Spain) is an artist living and working in New York. She has exhibited at Almine Rech, Fredericks & Freiser, Lubov, The Tennis Elbow at The Journal, L21, Ruttkowski;68, amonst many others. She has received many notable grants and residencies, and is frequently covered by the press, with recent features in Architectural Digest Ēspana and Artnet.

We are pleased to present our sixth vitrine exhibition with Brussels-based French artist Jean-Baptiste Bernadet.

Bernadet is known primarily for his multi-hued atmospheric color field paintings, depicting effervescent swathes of vibrational gestures across sublime and pensive surfaces.

Our presentation Wise Words presents both a shift away and towards the artist’s practice; with the inclusion of two text paintings. An early and integral part of his work, Bernadet’s text paintings were last shown in 2011.

This presentation is made complete by text by French artist Emile Rubino, evoking the illustrious and romantic nature of the paintings themselves, full of wanderlust and desire; “with words, flung onto the canvas, like the coordinates, of an unknown pictorial destination”.

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Jean-Baptiste Bernadet (b. 1978) has exhibited widely in Europe and the US in both gallery and institutional settings. His works are in the permanent collections of many major museums. He is represented by Almine Rech.

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handcrafted promises
brought to you as
miniature billboards
to lure you in

with words
anchored to the surface
so jury-rigged souvenirs don’t flee
to an announced elsewhere

this way,
the sign reads

with words
flung onto the canvas
like the coordinates
of an unknown pictorial destination
…paroles et paroles et paroles

let the paint guide you, they say
if the series produces the paintings, then,
it must be a sign

drifting along the coast
spinning in the sun
picture me
deceptively hot
in zesty pink and black

frappé on the shore
outlined by a Barré arrow
pointing to the nearest repository
of cheerful sights

you hold on
to your begging bowl
and sing the praises
of the sacred sippy cup

to your frozen longings,
to your iced peregrinations,
“Drunk with love’s acrid torpors,”
O waves ~ or something about interiority

you look for a buoy to lift you up
disappointed tourist
you find your way

-Emile Rubino

We are pleased to present My Generation, our fifth vitrine exhibition, featuring works by 14 international artists.

Portraying a cross-section of today’s working artists from Los Angeles to Paris, this compact but varied presentation maps a web of supporters and those who provide inspiration to Massif Central.

Tisch Abelow
Nick Atkins
Anastasia Bay
Cyrus Bennett
Chito
Emeline Depas
Ryan Foerster
Alfonso Gonzalez Jr.
Antonia Kuo
Keegan McHargue
Mario Picardo
Nick Poe
Eva Robarts
Tamara Santibañez

We are pleased to announce ‘Soft Earth’ our latest vitrine exhibition by American painter Keegan McHargue.

Keegan’s lyrical, freeform oil paintings explore the cosmos and encapsulate celestial reflection. Bathed in chartreuse moonlight, his wild-style patterning and layering techniques align foreground and background on the same plane, on which forms collide breathlessly.

His process is play-oriented, puzzling together seamlessly a mélange of intensely imaginative organic matter. Orchids of an art nouveau variation are placed atop a deep sea of cobalt blue – with vegetation, building blocks, human hands spiraling in the surrounding continuums fluidly.

Keegan grew to notoriety in the early 2000s for his highly inventive and attuned style. By his early 20s he was known as a pioneering cultural contributor, his impact at the time in influencing young artists was unparalleled. Keegan’s consistently expansive imagination is evident in his unhinged, vibrant, and unbridled oeuvres.

Keegan McHargue is an American artist living & working in New York. Solo exhibitions include Metro Pictures, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Jack Hanley Gallery, Fredericks & Freiser, among others. This is Keegan’s first exhibition in Belgium.

Parisian painter of dreams and nightmares, Antwan is known for his depictions of amorphous, multi-limbed figures floating within ethereal outerworld environments.

A pioneer of avant-garde graffiti, Antwan has long held the position as a king of outdoor street painting, his underground influence and stature is rivaled by few.

His practice engulfs a myriad of materials, his enormous output comes in many forms; animations, ceramics, paintings, sculpture, artist books, murals, and beyond.

Influenced by 80s Japanese animation, these 13 works on paper feature cyber-punk fantasy worlds containing elements such as rotten apple cores, jumbled text fragments, and drip dyed tattoo ink vortexes.

These tender yet caustic paintings depict characters in tangled movement, pulled and leaning in all directions, seeking escape routes from a society on the brink of cataclysmic collapse.

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Antwan has had recent solo exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo; Paris, Ruttkowski;68, and Nino Mier Gallery, and group presentations at The Lyon Bienniale, Maison Pommery, and Galerie Christophe Gaillard, among others. He is a prolific publisher of printed ephemera, maintains the role of a community activist in Paris, and is highly respected in the world of tattooing.

Full intensity and highly saturated, the site-specific installation of twelve paintings on paper features a mélange of Trudy’s iconic patterns and gestures.

The gridded install buzzes with freshly pulled stripes, blocky checkerboards, zig-zags, and other maze-like structures.

The neon flatness is counterbalanced by drips and fresh repetitive movements, linear yet gleefully loose, dancing psychedelically out-of-sync.

Similar to entering the high energy vortex of a Belgian discotheque, the show continues non-stop, on-view 24/7 at Rue de la Concorde in Ixelles.

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Trudy Benson (b. 1985) received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and her MFA from Pratt Institute. Trudy is known internationally for her dynamic digital-to-analog painting style, and is represented widely across the USA and Europe. This is Trudy’s first solo exhibition in Belgium.

Special thanks to Miles McEnery Gallery, New York.

Derived from a dream, Tisch’s poppy paintings recall her grandmother’s bed linens. Flowers float gracefully across the matte surfaces, softly pressed — flattened and turned about in a myriad of directions. Similar to home textiles, orientation is a second-thought. The repeated motifs reference replayed experiences from her childhood — subtly streaming memories of an introspective and tactile nature.

Guided by her practice in the field of psychoanalysis, Tisch weaves into her paintings a particular interest in psychology, her work re-contextualizes associations with family and progression of youth. The almost pocket-sized scale of the paintings and their zoomed-in nature gives one the sense of interacting intimately with the works, similar to the feeling of awakening wrapped in delicate bedding of a pop and familial variety.

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Tisch Abelow (b. 1985) lives and works in New York. She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MA from New York Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. Tisch has exhibited widely in the United States — at galleries such as Nina Johnson, Shoot The Lobster, Jack Hanley Gallery, and Essex Flowers, and in notable duo-exhibitions with prominent artists such as Joshua Abelow, Peter Harkawik, and Orion Martin.

The striking, globe-like Seth Thomas clocks are at the heart, the very center, of Grand Central Station. I admired them from the entrance of track 17. I was on my way to Thomaston, Connecticut, the exact location where the clocks had been designed and manufactured. In fact, the town was named after Seth Thomas himself. I was traveling there to speak with the current CEO, a man named Arthur Peckinpaw.

I made my way further into the tunnel, and boarded the Metro-North car. I took a seat, a window on the left. I watched the train fill up, a mix of trench coat adorned day traders escaping to the suburbs, college kids heading back to mom and dad, and the occasional drifter.

I watched the graffiti covered Bronx turn into woods. Post-industrial towns sped by, the train carving through the bones of what were once productive mills and factories. We arrived in Bridgeport, another Connecticut town once prosperous that now resembled a dismal, post- apocalyptic landscape of smoking towers and mangled buildings. Transportation budgets had been repeatedly cut year after year, and there would be a transfer to another train, which would take me to Waterbury. I exited the Metro-North commuter, and was instructed that I would be waiting on the platform for about 10 minutes until my connection arrived. I stood on the platform, watching the myriad of other passengers. A young girl with headphones moved to a rhythm, a mother in nurse scrubs chastised her son. I looked over the railing, into the black water below. The track rumbled, and I could make out the train in the distance. It was slow to arrive, an unimpressive dual caboose that was obviously much older than the Metro-North train, which now seemed flashy in comparison.
I boarded the train and took another window seat.

I arrived in Waterbury. Mr. Peckinpaw previously advised me he would be picking me up, and taking me to the Seth Thomas factory, a roughly 15 minute car ride to Thomaston. I stepped off the train onto the platform, and walked towards the parking lot where Mr. Peckinpaw was standing by the drab, grey Mercedes he had described. We briefly introduced each other and headed towards the Route 8 onramp.
The Seth Thomas Clock factory was impressive. A vast structure, filled with tall windows, with a signature massive clock in a tower, which seemed to cast a shadow over the entire small town. Mr. Peckinpaw walked me through the building. We surveyed the assembly floors, where springs, hands, and hardware filled bins and covered tables. He showed me the office quarters, where white desks sat in neat rows. He was trying to be professional, but was visibly nervous.

He told me why I had been hired. He had contacted my Manhattan advertising firm to revamp the brand. He explained how the increased availability of cheaper digital clocks had put the Seth Thomas Clock Company in a very vulnerable position. People were shying away from the heavy, complicated clocks they had grown up with and were replacing them with inexpensive, plug in clocks from Japan and Switzerland. The new clocks had alarms and radios, and could be easily moved and stored.

We entered a freight elevator, and Mr. Peckinpaw pulled down the large gate, hitting the button to take us down. I watched the many floors pass by. We exited the elevator, to the basement that stored all unsold inventory. We walked though room after room, filled with clocks of every shape, size and model. Grandfather clocks that looked heavy as stone, round clocks the size of spare tires, clocks for shelves and mantles. We turned a corner, and he opened a tall, vault-like door. We walked into a large room filled with what seemed like an endless amount of clocks. The ticking of a thousand second hands in unison was deafening.
I turned to Mr. Peckinpaw and chuckled. “Well, I guess you always know what time it is.”
Mr. Peckinpaw turned to me, and looked me dead in the face. He showed no emotion.

“There’s nothing funny about time,” he said.

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Ted Gahl (b.1983) has had solo exhibitions with Halsey McKay, Zach Feuer, Retrospective, DODGE, Galleri Jacob Bjorn, Nino Mier Gallery, Cooper Cole, Green Gallery, and Romer Young.
He received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and his BFA from Pratt Institute.

Abelow is known internationally for his painterly commentary on contemporary art and culture. His paintings defy a specific genre, incorporating elements of figuration, abstraction, text, and beyond.

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Joshua Abelow (b. 1976) lives and works in upstate New York and NYC. He received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and his MFA from The Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has exhibited widely in
the United States and internationally, and is also well known for his writing. In addition to his studio practice, Abelow also organizes exhibitions regularly under the name Freddy.

Featuring the work of Berlin-based artist Kevin Kemter, this exhibition includes a series of large-scale paintings, connected to form life-size wall cubes. Also on view are two sculptural human-like forms fastened with a dozen drawings in flipbooks. These wooden, bodily shapes with are omnipresent within the space, somehow lurking, watching the viewer’s moves as they explore the installation.

The surfaces of the paintings and drawings reflect a litany of artistic impulses and reactions. Inspired by underground subsystems, urban exploration, and fantasy worlds, these works include forms that are both immediately recognizable but also obscured, buried or floating beneath one another within the picture plane.

Often the human body is a jumping point for integrating other common objects, which are then modified, abstracted, and layered to the point of chaotic dissonance and total disorientation. One is invited into a world of wonky and wild creatures with fantastical patterning, arranged within vividly colorful surroundings. Glittered with butterflies, heart-like shapes, teapots, these densely packed surfaces dance gracefully out of sync. One has the feeling of being included in an outer space science experiment, simultaneously lost between what is real and what is left to be discovered or unleashed.

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Kevin Kemter (b. 1984, Berlin) has shown extensively in Germany, with over thirty solo and group shows. His exhibitions usually combine drawing and painting within larger contexts of installation. He is also well known as a co-founder of AKV Berlin, a publishing group, and has self-published twenty of his own books and catalogues. This is his first exhibition in Belgium.

Guilbert’s works in Rhum Arrangé reference his Creole roots and upbringing in Reunion Island, off the southern coast of Africa. The volcano motif repeated in these works is sculpted by use of a unique process involving heated wax and oil paints. While modest in scale, the rigorously crafted surfaces imbue a certain sense of sensuality and labored intensity. The works are neither exactingly precise nor slovenly loose in their making; they propose a warm balance between the two. In person, they invite particularly close inspection.

Akin to viewing a box of jewels, the luminous and densely multi-layered surfaces encourage enjoyment from multiple points of observation, changing greatly depending on position of the viewer. The subtle details and color shifts only expand in richness and fullness when the nuanced compositions are studied more at length and at alternate depths.

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Brice Guilbert (b. 1979, France) has shown in multiple exhibitions throughout Europe. Guilbert has mounted solo shows in Brussels, Berlin, and Grenoble and has shown in group shows in New York, Bucharest, Ghent, and beyond. In addition to his painting practice, Guilbert co-founded Island in Brussels, and has published two books. His Creole songs and performances are highly regarded for their poetic and harmonious nature.

NADA New York booth (2016) featuring a variety of unique works by MC artists as well as an interactive display of scarves.

Our first launch party and exhibition in the Lower East Side in New York (2014) featuring our initial collection of scarves, displayed within custom frames.