This unofficial site offers, with his agreement, 

a brief overviewn of the Belgian artist's research.  

The site is open and under construction

SEroux

OUR LIVES

AS ARCHIPELAGO


A RELATIONAL  

AESTHETIC

Seroux is the keystone of a collective made up of David REALH, Alex Svi, Zorah SOMEXKI and a few others.

 

Since a trip to Lisbon in 2008 and his ‘in situ’ reading of Fernando Pessoa, and later the writing of ‘Nos vies comme événement’ by Paul Qwest with Elisa Brune from 2016, Séroux has been deploying polyphonic and archipelagic works. 


Each of them is made up of a main element, often painting or drawing, around which gravitate, in resonance, the interventions of his heteronyms, in the form of objects, photographs and so on.

 

It is the relationships between these various elements, orchestrated by curator Paul Qwest, that produce the unexpected and give us a glimpse of the unthought.


EXEMPLE : ESCAPE

1 central arwork 

4 adjacent elements

Séroux 

New York 2012

8 watercolours on paper 30 / 40 cm

4 adjacent elements

 

Alex Svi

1 question - Arles 2016

 

Séroux

1 photograph 2016 - Montreal

 

The Somexki Collection 

1 photograph found in Paris

 

Séroux

1 photograph 2017

THE POLYPHONY OF POSSIBLE SENSES

Meaning emerges from this particular arrangement. The relationships we weave between its different elements create a network of links within us, of open reflections, of personal and shifting sensations. Each viewer will see differently what is presented as common to all.

RELATIVES DIMENSIONS 

The relative sizes of the works seen on the screen do not reflect the actual dimensions given in the details on the ‘ARTWORKS’ pages. Generally, drawings and paintings dominate space in terms of size.


PLURAL 

IDENTITY

THE SINGULARITY

Like the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, who conceived of multiple poetic writings under different heteronyms, Séroux is at once and successively David REALH, Alex SVI, Zorah SOMEXKI and his collections of found photographs for example, plus a few others. Painter, draughtsman, photographer, the name Séroux thus designates a multifaceted and paradoxically collective body of work.

 

The singularity of the work consists in linking the works of different heteronyms. This exercise is carried out by art historian and curator Paul QWEST, in the form of arrangements that become inseparable.

 

DEFINITION

A heteronym is a pseudonym that develops a life as a distinct entity with its own sensibility. Each heteronym develops its own technique, its own style, its own ideas, its own impulses, its own way of doing and perceiving.

 


RECENT

artworks

EUPHORIA

Does euphoria love me

Séroux

3 watercolors

30 / 21 cm

 

Alex Svi

1 question 

Arles 2016

 

The Somexki Collection 

1 photograph found in Bruxelles

  

Seroux

1 photograph

 


ART

Does art imply the existence

of any kind of disorder

Séroux

1 painting 

 

The Somexki Collection

1 photograph

 

Alex Svi

1 question

Arles 2016

 


TRAVEL

Why does one year

circle around the earth

The Collection Somexki 

1 photograph

 

Séroux

1 watercolor sur papier

Patagonia / Strait of Magellan

4 x 70 / 50 cm

 

Alex Svi

1 question

Arles 2016

 


WHY THIS

COLLECTIVE ?

 

How does an understanding of

the historical and cultural context

of this work contribute

to an understanding of it?

OUR LIVES ?

In ancient Hebrew, the word ‘life’ 

doesn't exist in the singular.

 

Would it be possible to know only one, a single life, defined, constant, always the same, coherent and unique? Does something begin the day we realise that our identity too is more complex than determined, made up of multiple juxtaposed aspects? And if something begins on that day, what, for example?

 

‘Our lives do indeed follow one another in stages, from early childhood to death. They are also simultaneous, and sometimes both serene and worried at the same time, very different depending on the relational contexts in which we find ourselves.

 

They take many forms, depending on the angle from which we see them: physical, spiritual, private, public, family, professional, emotional, sexual, cultural, intimate, avowable, unavowable, dreamt of, experienced, that of our memories or that of our future hopes and expectations... 

 

Not all of them are consistent with each other, far from it, but each one is related to others.



EGO STATES OF

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

Defined by psychiatrist Eric Bernstein, the founder of transactional analysis in the 1960s, these states help us to better understand the diversity of our relationships with the world, with others and with ourselves. SérouxThe adult stateDavid Realhthe child stateAlex Svithe parent state Zorah Somexkirepresents the collective memory through her collection of found photographsOthersMax Ghabor, for example, has collected traces of extraordinary intimate and sensual lives.

 

Seroux

the adult state

David Realh

the child state

Alex Svi

the parent state

 

Zorah Somexki

represents the collective memory

through her collection of found photographs

 

D'autres

Max Ghabor, for example, has collected

traces of intimate, free lives

and therefore out of the ordinary.


LITERATURE

Fernando Pessoa

The Portuguese writer (1888 - 1935) is a multiple author. His notable heteronyms are :

Alberto Caeiro, nature poet. Ricardo Reis, classical and stoic. Álvaro de Campos, modern and futurist. 

Bernardo Soares, ‘assistant’ author.

 

Romain Gary

Born Roman Kacew in Vilnius, he arrived in France at the age of 14. He was Fosco Sinibaldi, Shatan Bogat, Émile Ajar, Romain Gary, Lucien Brulard, René Deville... He won the Goncourt Price twice without anyone noticing.

 ‘I've always been someone else’.

 


BRIEF PRESENTATION

OF EACH heteronyms

SEROUX

THE KEYSTONE

His painting is based on organised thought. The representation is structured in a figurative, rational way, attached to perspective. It conveys emotions while avoiding the impulsive reactions of the child state, which is taken into account by his alter-equal David Realh. A kind of melancholy can bring to mind a kind of emptiness that turns its back on us, the eloquence of silence.

PAINTING

WORKS ON PAPER

PHOTOGRAPHY


DAVID REALH

THE GRAPHOMAN

When a child appears,

he is born with all the nuances of the world.

It has its demands, its ambitions.

It is the child in me that creates me.

ELIE WIESEL

The creative process can be described as a temporary, compulsory psychosis. So it's no accident that the artist is ‘mad’: it's a necessity. More often than not, he will not remain in the state of madness; he will merely pass through it; sometimes he will linger. But his norm as an artist always requires him to go through an essential syncopation, a real collapse of the spirit, from which the new will emerge. Better still, only the new can emerge from this chaos. This eclipse that shatters consciousness is the very condition of the creative act.

 

Anton Ehrenzweig - The Hidden Order of Art


ALEX SVI

THE TALMUDIST

The answer is yes.

But what was the question?

Woody Allen

Where and to whom are these questions being asked? Why does the ‘Talmudist’ in the team manifest himself in typographic form? How does he explore the attitudes, beliefs, values, norms and benevolent criticisms that he has inherited and assimilated through his upbringing in the broadest sense, collecting questions like others go to mushrooms? Are they all edible?

 

New york 2012

Rencontres d'Arles 2016


THE SOMEXKI

COLLECTION

ARTWORKS WITHOUT ARTISTS

The ideal reader reads all literature

as if it were anonymous.

Alberto Manguel


Involuntary memory

Zorah Somexki presents historical and intimate memories through her collection of found, anonymous photographs. The photographs are used as they are, and sometimes graphically reproduced.


Artwork without an artist

Sometimes a work of art is not the result of any intention, if its quality is there for all to see. It opens doors for us that sometimes only we can see.



THE QWEST

Collection

MISCELLANEOUS WORKS


GABHOR

COLLECTION

A DESIRE

OF PARRHESIA

Intimate exploration

Beneath all the sweetness of the fleshthere

is the permanence of a danger.

Marcel Proust

For a particular project, an unexpected search, Séroux gives himself a new heteronym to meet a special circumstance.


particular

projects

INFORMED PUBLICS

The MANET, RODIN and ROPS tribute sections are not ‘open to all’ like this artist more generally. They contain works of a sexual nature which are likely to shock some people and interest others. If this spirit bothers you, or if your education, your ethics or your sensibilities forbid you, don't go and consult them. This is free formal and philosophical research.


This ? NO !

HOMAGE TO FELICIEN ROPS

OR THE ART OF SAYING IT LIKE IT IS

"Rops am,

virtuous ne puis,

hypocrite do not deign".


Félicien Rops made this profession of faith throughout his life. Born in Namur, Belgium, on 7 July 1833, he was a friend of Baudelaire, whose collections he illustrated.

His artistic impulses and his lifestyle reflected the independence of spirit and creation that characterised his art. A free thinker and humanist, he remains one of the most creative, sulphurous and provocative men in the history of Western art.

 

Arthur Rimbaud, his contemporary, was abandoned by his friends after ‘Le bateau ivre’, on the pretext of bad taste. He countered with the concept of the ‘MAUVAIS GENRE’.

 

Here we are.

 



EXEMPLE

Desire

Qwest Collection 

1 drawing / Félicien Rops

Tentation

Félicien Rops

 

David Realh

1 drawing - 9 panel

 

Alex Svi

1 question

Arles 2016

Homage to Harakiri

 

Ghabor Collection 

1 photograph


The sirens

The Somexki Collection 

2 photographs

 

Séroux

1 painting

 

Alex Svi

1 question

Arles 2016

 

The Ghabor Collection 

1 photograph

 

Seroux

1 photograph

homage to Andres Serrano


A BOOK

The spirit that runs through this research has been translated into a book entitled ‘Nos vies comme événement’, co-authored by Elisa Brune and Paul Qwest and published in Paris by Odile Jacob in 2019. 

 

The literary form of the book is directly inspired by the plastic form of the work presented here.


PHILOSOPHY

This process of seeing very different forms (painting, found photographs, various typographies, objects, drawings, etc.) enter into dialogue is close to the thinking of the French philosopher Edouard Glissant. Instead of a fixed identity, he prefers the trembling of its components, and instead of continental conceptual monoliths, he favours the diversity of archipelagos:

 

‘It is in archipelagic regions that lack the density and mass of continental thought that we can best try to see what today's humanities are tending towards.’

 

To put it another way, pluralism is understood as a diversity of points of view on the move, a richness that is the opposite of single, monomaniacal, totalising thoughts. This is also true when it comes to our private lives. And here we are: 

The plastic translations of our intimate polyphonies are at the heart of what is on display here.

more on 

A BOOK



Question from Victor Segalen:

"Increasing our faculty of perceiving the Diverse,

is it shrinking our personality or enriching it?

Is it stealing something from it

or making it more numerous?

No doubt:

it is enriching it abundantly

with the whole universe."

 

TO BETTER UNDERSTANDING :

A SINGULAR COLLECTIVE

A BOOK

RESEARCH IN 

ARTWORKS