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.
More on
A SINGULAR COLLECTIVE
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."