Bortolami is pleased to present the second solo show by Michel François at the gallery. For this exhibition, François proposes a formal sculpture show. Set up like a series of architectonic elements that appear to be relics, the sculptures show grandness in form, but at the same time seem almost at the point of collapsing. The austerity of the group of works is threatened by the fragile stability of the materials. François questions the internal or external forces that push the objects into a possible dissolution.

Dipping ordinary things, such as nets, into plaster to make them rigid, Francois juxtaposes the crumpled form with a skeletal one to produce tensions in the sculptures. He then finishes them with mediums such as gold leaf, polystyrene balls, fluorescent or metallic paint. Other works use glass, a material often employed by François in the past. Adding emphasis to the rigid versus collapsed form, François incorporates a new video of juggling glasses and posters with images of tumbling objects.

Michel François was born in 1956 in Saint-Trond, Belgium. Upcoming Solo exhibitions include MC Project, Los Angeles and Thomas Dane, London. Past Solo exhibitions includeFrac Haute-Normandie, Rouen; Frac Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France;CCStrombeek, Belgium; Maison de la culture d’Amiens, France; Art Pace Foundation, San Antonio, Texas; De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Space Vox, Montreal; CCA Kitakyushu, Japan; Westfalischer Kunstverein, Munster, Germany; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Center for Photography, Geneva, Switzerland and Fondatión Miró, Barcelona, Kunsthalle Bern, and Haus der Kunst, Munich. François’s work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions such as, “Recent Video from Belgium,” Philadelphia Museum of Art, The 49th Venice Biennale – where he represented Belgium together with Ann Veronica Janssen, the São Paolo Biennal XXII, and Documenta IX. The artist currently lives and works in Brussels.