Fugue - Aaron Amar Bhamra & Celine Mathieu

         Conversations

Jester proudly presents Fugue, a duo exhibition by Aaron Amar Bhamra (°1992, AT) and Céline Mathieu (°1989, BE). Both artists create new artworks, a publication and a shared edition as the result of their dialogue. Aaron Amar Bhamra interweaves his backgrounds in architecture and music, orchestrating forms by using materials from personal and social archives. This exhibition marks his first presentation in Belgium. Céline Mathieu imagines new tactics to rewire finances and revalue close relationships. This body of work was developed during her residency at Jester. Both artists’ practices span across various fields of cultural work, assuming the roles of writer, curator, educator and researcher.

         Conversions

Fugue forms a dissonant harmony of fleeting gestures that converge in a composition of counterpoint, inversion and echo. The title originates from the Latin fuga (flight) and relates to its two meanings: a polyphonic musical motif and a psychological state of dissociation. The composition of a fugue—on the one hand—sets the tone with multiple voices being doubled, mirrored and halved in an emergence of new melodic themes. A fugue state—on the other hand—indicates a displacement of the mind, inflicted by a trauma that causes a sudden loss of memory. Both the aural and mental dimensions of a fugue inform the exhibition. Sound and air are impermanent media that materialize and elude the artists’ voices. Encounters between substances are temporal and fleeting, whether they consume, hold or release each other. Strayed objects are stripped of their functionality and separated from their origins. In Fugue, the artworks are numbered in a non-(chrono)logical manner, led by the (dis)associative wandering of the artists’ minds, while some are visible only on certain days of the week or solely to Jester’s employees or residents. Bypassing the spatial conditions and conventional circulation of your ears, eyes and noses, the artworks ascend and descend from different angles of the architecture, presenting its spaces as echo chambers.

         Convergences

Listen carefully, for all artworks whisper of times, affinities and seasons. Watch closely, for Tempus fugit (time flies), and see how dissociated objects find refuge in Genk's history. Take in the scents that doze their sculptures asleep before a breath swells to a breeze and carry them on air. Transient proposals take flight to the garden, studio and residency building, while relations, resources, thoughts and affects circulate and temporarily rest in a state of fugue.

The exhibition is accompanied by a commissioned composition of a visual score by sound artist Charlie Usher, a collaborative edition and a publication with contributions by curator Eloise Sweetman and researcher Johanna Schindler which will be published by Mousse Publishing and launched in May ‘25.

         On air

At the close of the nineteenth century, the Kneipp sanatorium landed in Bokrijk, a village next to Genk, drawn by the abundance of clean—and therefore healthy—air. At this sanctuary, lung patients would reside to cure their tuberculosis and other respiratory ailments through hydro-, balneo- and aërotherapy. Simultaneously, the region of Genk became a renowned station d’artistes—a beloved haven for painters, scientists and writers—that flourished with the same fresh air that nourished its natural landscape. The latter fled when the mining industry of coal extraction irreversibly scarred the landscape. Oxygen was sparse in this vast network of tunnels, while its fabricators often suffered from dust lungs and other pulmonary diseases. Air thus carries the sound of many voices and the weight of many histories—on the one hand healing through purity and presence, on the other harmful through pollution and absence. Air quality and health remain therefore inseparable and indispensable to all life, then and now.

Fugue was produced in collaboration with Phileas - The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art and with the support of the Flemish Government, the City of Genk, the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport (BMKOES) of Austria and the Austrian Cultural Forum Brussels.