MASSIMODECARLO Advert
Become a My Ocula member for exclusive access to contemporary art and personalised artist recommendations.
Join Us Sign In
The Art World in Focus
Clear
Thomas Houseago

THOMAS HOUSEAGO

Constructions Xavier Hufkens 18 May–7 July 2018 Rivoli
Overview Artworks Location
Request Prices & Availability
Press Release

Xavier Hufkens Gallery is pleased to present Constructions, an exhibition of new sculptures and paintings by Thomas Houseago. This is the artist’s fifth exhibition with the gallery.

Known for figurative sculpture and immersive architectural environments, Thomas Houseago has established a sculptural and painting practice using a wide range of mediums, including traditional materials such as plywood, plaster, hemp, graphite, iron rebar, charcoal, as well as, bronze and aluminium. Houseago’s life-sized and monumental sculptures have appeased his natural tendency to work in a scale that requires a physical struggle, as well as performative and exhaustive efforts. His sculptures and paintings are infused with a sense of urgency, dynamism and vulnerability.

Artists such as Giacometti, Rodin, Brancusi and Calder have long fascinated Houseago with their ability to project intentions of monumentality onto their sculptural models or maquettes. With this new series of assemblage sculptures, originally fabricated in plywood, Houseago takes a new approach that lies in direct opposition to the conventional sculptural process of scaling up models for the realization of monumental form, and plays with notions of imagined and constructed form. The sculptures included in Constructions concentrate on the artist’s obsessions: the walking figure, the head and face, the reclining figure, the owl. ‘I wanted to focus on them from a very meditative and performative stance,’ Houseago explains. Indeed, the basis for these works are meditative drawings and their movement from drawing to wood cuts, from wood to metal they trace their making and establish solid form through actions and transitions.

The paintings in the exhibition, a series of fragmented faces in charcoal, graphite, and coloured pencil further explore Houseago’s fracturing process. ‘My paintings often come from the drawings, but what goes on in the paintings will then feed the sculptures.’ In this cyclical and interlinked process Houseago takes us through his personal relationship with forms within space, and the traditions of building structures, memories, and experiences.

Thomas Houseago (b. 1972, Leeds, UK) lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2019, a retrospective of his work will open at the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Solo exhibitions include Lovers, Le Consortium, Vosne-Romanée, France (2015-2016), Masks (Pentagon), Rockefeller Plaza, New York (2015); Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, The Netherlands (2014) and Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York (2013).

Read More

Installation Views

About the Artist

Thomas Houseago studied art at London’s Central St Martin’s college in the early 1990s before moving to Amsterdam to study at de Ateliers. He later moved to Brussels, where he lived and worked for several years, and had his first solo show with Xavier Hufkens in 2001. Houseago creates monumental, often figurative sculptures that have a striking ability to simultaneous convey states of power and vulnerability. Using materials associated with classical and modernist sculpture (such as carved wood, clay, plaster and bronze), as well as less traditional materials (steel rods, concrete and hessian), Houseago creates sculptures that emphatically reveal the process of making. Typical of his work is the combination of elements rendered in flat portions of wood with others sculpted in the round, together with hand-drawn components that are, in a technical tour-de-force, cast and printed onto the works. Whilst Houseago’s oeuvre can be seen as a continuation of a historical sculptural tradition, the unusual combinations of materials, the inclusion of references drawn from popular culture and the unusual interplay between two and three-dimensional elements, all challenge the hierarchy inherent within visual forms, and the materials and values associated with them.

View Artist Profile

Also Exhibiting at Xavier Hufkens

All Exhibitions
Walter Swennen
WALTER SWENNEN errata Xavier Hufkens 4 June–25 July 2026 Van Eyck
Nicolas Party
NICOLAS PARTY Toile d’araignée Xavier Hufkens 21 May–25 July 2026 St-Georges
Joan Semmel
JOAN SEMMEL Continuities Xavier Hufkens 22 April–27 June 2026 Rivoli
About the Gallery
Xavier Hufkens is one of Europe’s leading galleries for contemporary art. Located in Brussels, the gallery maintains a diverse exhibition programme with solo exhibitions of the gallery artists as well as group exhibitions and special projects. The gallery deals in a distinctive combination of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation-based work.

The origins of the gallery date back to 1987, when Xavier Hufkens opened a gallery space in an un-refurbished warehouse in the neighbourhood of the South Station (Midi) in Brussels. During the early years, the focus of the gallery was upon mid-career and emerging artists and the gallery is known for having introduced some of the most influential contemporary artists to Brussels at a time when they were still relatively unknown. British sculptor Antony Gormley, who is still affiliated with the gallery, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Rosemarie Trockel all showed in Belgium for the first time with Xavier Hufkens (Gormley in 1987; Gonzalez-Torres in 1991 and Trockel in 1993).

In 1992, the gallery moved to a 19th-century townhouse at 6 rue Saint-Georges, close to the Avenue Louise. Completely renovated by Belgian architects Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Marie-José Van Hee, the house quickly gained a reputation for being not just one of the most beautiful contemporary art spaces in the Belgian capital, but also one of the most interesting. The expanded exhibition programme coincided with the additional representation of a number of established artists from Belgium and abroad, including Richard Artschwager, Thierry De Cordier and Jan Vercruysse. In 1997, Hufkens expanded the gallery further by annexing the adjacent building and a number of new artists joined the gallery, including Louise Bourgeois, Roni Horn and Thomas Houseago.

A second space in the same street, at 107 rue Saint-Georges, opened in spring 2013. Located in the Galerie Rivoli, a mixed-use commercial development from the 1970s, the new gallery space was designed by Swiss architect Harry Gugger, who was previously in partnership with Herzog and De Meuron. Slegten & Toegemann, Brussels, managed the project.

An eclectic but very clear vision underpins all of the gallery’s activities: ‘The definition of the gallery was established from the start. The common thread, then and now, is quality over and above everything else, which I find more intellectually challenging than a forced definition. From the early days I juxtaposed established artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto with someone like Felix Gonzalez-Torres when he was totally unknown. Today I still mix my work: I have no problem showing Malcolm Morley … alongside Robert Ryman, or Willem de Kooning.’ [Xavier Hufkens in The Art Newspaper, Issue 220, January 2011, published online: 20 January 2011]

Xavier Hufkens represents some thirty artists from different generations. He was part of the six-member selection committee for Art Basel during seven years and also participates in up to five international Arts Fairs annually. The gallery has partnerships with the estates of Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mapplethorpe and Alice Neel.
View Gallery Profile
Address
107 rue St-Georges
St-Jorisstraat
Brussels
Belgium
Opening Hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11am – 6pm
(1)
Brussels 107 rue St-Georges
Xavier Hufkens contemporary art gallery in Rivoli Brussels Belgium
Xavier Hufkens
107 rue St-Georges, St-Jorisstraat, Brussels, Belgium
+32 263 967 30
http://www.xavierhufkens.com

Opening hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11am – 6pm
Magazine Gallery Platform Advisory
Ocula Magazine

A respected voice in contemporary art discourse.

Focusing on ambitious storytelling and insightful art-world commentary. Ocula Magazine publishes in-depth interviews, critical essays and timely analysis on the artists, exhibitions and ideas driving the global art world.

 Learn more about Ocula Magazine Learn more about Ocula Magazine Ocula Gallery Platform

Showcasing the best of the art world.

Ocula partners with galleries from around the world to highlight their artists, artworks and exhibitions. Gallery membership is by application and invitation, with each member vetted by an independent panel.

 Learn more about Ocula Membership Learn more about Ocula Membership Ocula Advisory

Specialises in the sale of major artworks.

Led by a team with deep ties to the world’s leading auction houses, galleries and collectors. Ocula’s advisory team offers bespoke services to high-net-worth clients from around the world who are looking to acquire the best of contemporary and modern art.

 Learn more about our team and services Learn more about Ocula Advisory
The art world in focus