Jacques Charlier (b. 1939 in Belgium, where he lives and works) has been producing biting, radically eclectic work since the early 1960s. His approach is defined by his critical and humorous take on society, the art world and current clichés about the avant-garde. Because of his constant search for relevant links between ideas and media, he favors an interdisciplinary working method that includes painting, photography, video, reportage, music, writing, sculpture, installation, comics and advertising. His parodies of the language of different styles and eras highlight the qualities, contradictions and declines of dominant artistic movements. The result forces the viewer to continually revisit the history of art. In this case, it testifies to Charlier’s irritation with the frenzy of fashionable art and his denunciation of this frenetic pace. The poetic, coded paintings reveal the composition of a multi-faceted artistic identity and reiterate Charlier’s pleasure in playing with all styles, then abandoning them. For him, they are temporary tools in the service of his ideas. (R.Vandersanden)