Yves Bélorgey

Xippas ParisXippas GenevaXippas Punta del Este

Born in 1960, Yves Bélorgey lives and works in Montreuil, France.

Since the 1990s, Yves Bélorgey has been interested in suburban landscape, and more particularly in the collective architecture of large complexes built between 1950 and 1970. He then began a vast painting project which would respond to a fictitious public commission consisting of “painting collective buildings like documents ”. Based on methodical and nostalgic archiving of a whole neglected part of modernist architecture and of a bygone social project, Yves Bélorgey’s work gradually started to reveal interiors and human figures, since these same buildings are either destroyed or renovated over time. For the artist, interior and exterior are intimately linked: living is not just a private activity but also a social framework that allows us to learn and test our social behavior.

Abandoning the technique of oil painting, he now works with dry pigments that he puts and fixes directly on the canvas. By resembling graphite drawings and photography, this technique ensures direct contact with colors, and renders the artist’s favorite subject – the inhabited buildings – even more vibrant.

Yves Bélorgey’s work was the subject of personal exhibitions in numerous institutions such as Le Printemps de Septembre, CIAM – La Fabrique, Toulouse, France (2021), Kunstverein Heilbronn, Germany (2019), Centre d’art Le19, Montbéliard, France (2017), Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain Languedoc-Roussillon, Sérignan, France (2012), Ulm Kunstlerhaus, Germany (2012), Musée National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania (2011). In 2012, the Mamco in Geneva organized the first retrospective to his artwork, including nearly a hundred pieces.

In 2001, Yves Bélorgey was granted an outside residency at Villa Medici (voyage to Latin America) and in 2009 he was resident at Villa Kujoyama, Kyoto, Japan.

Public collections (selection): MAMCO, Geneva, Fonds Cantonal d’Art Contemporain (Geneva), FRAC Basse-Normandie, Caen, FRAC Bretagne, Châteaugiron, FRAC Franche-Comté, Dole, FRAC Pays de Loire, Carquefou, FRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Marseille, FRAC Rhône-Alpes, Villeurbanne, City of Lyon, France, City of Saint-Priest, France.