Langage Pas(sage)
Pol Pierart

« Pol Pierart’s work is, in the literal sense, a physics of writing: it would be pointless to ignore the fact that it was developed and continues to flourish near Liège, in the country of Marcel Havrenne, but also of Christian Dotremont, Pol Bury, René Magritte, Marcel Broodthaers, and so many others who very early understood—perhaps because Belgium is a turbulent union between two languages and two nations—that painting and writing, or rather text and image, form a relationship that is as complex as it is inseparable.»

— Didier Semin

« Born in 1955, Pol Pierart lives and works in Liège, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Since 1979, he has developed a body of work centered on language, ranging from painting to photography and Super 8 video. His research revolves around wordplay, puns, aphorisms, and the subversion of images through words. Pol Pierart examines our existence with a lucidity that diverts, disrupts, and reinvents every word and every image. His work defies classification and belongs to an artistic tradition in which language is both a playground and a form of resistance: Belgian surrealism (Paul Nougé, Marcel Mariën), Lettrism (Isidore Isou), Situationism (Guy Debord, Robert Filliou). »

— Vincent Gobber, curator of the exhibition