New York-based artist Genesis Belanger has made a name for himself by exploring the unusual and unconscious meanings of everyday objects, creating mysterious handmade tableaux vivants that combine the beauty of mass production with incredible craftsmanship across a range of materials, from wood to clay. He’s currently preparing for his upcoming show, “In the Right Conditions We are Indistinguishable” at the Pace Gallery in Hanover Square, which opens on October 9 to coincide with London Art Week, but stopped by to talk to the Observer about the themes of fitness build a new one. of work.
Belanger describes the exhibition as a series of vignettes that challenge our relationship with material things and the desires, needs and emotions we project onto them. “This idea that something or someone may be the same, without the context that makes a person different. The context is what changes a person,” he explained. In our discussion, Belanger reflects on America’s divided nature and suggests that much of this perceived diversity is actually caused by external circumstances. In his work, he captures the tension between cultural practices driven by mass production in the world and the deep personal stories we attach to the things around us.
Belanger’s underlying practice is an interest in how advertising and popular culture influence our perceptions and the value we place on physical objects. His intricately designed similes of ordinary objects serve as eerie anthropological artifacts for mass consumption, demonstrating the layered connection and emotional weight that inanimate objects give. By inviting us to examine these objects as symbols of our collective desires and anxieties, not to mention our greatest fears, Belanger’s installation offers commentary on the complex interplay between shopping and personal identity.
The surreal quality of Belanger’s art is linked to his interest in human psychology, an interest both Surrealism and advertising share. “I feel that the surreal character in my work is because Surrealism is interested in human psychology and the subconscious, as well as advertising,” the artist told us. “I came to unusual or unusual things by being interested in the tools used to advertise deception.” At the core of his research there is a deep focus on psychology, which then intersects with sociology and linguistics. He does not deliberately make the work think about Surrealism, but he thinks more about human psychology.
Belanger’s practice scenes move between dreamscapes and studio sets, where miniature versions of everyday human dramas are made of the elements that define that interaction. He explores how these objects transform into symbols, becoming part of a complex narrative. However, his characters (objects) seem to pass through time, embodying a sense of incompleteness—as if they are worn replicas of originals that once had meaning, shadows of an objective reference that has lost value and meaning through repeated adjustments.
By contrast, Belanger’s ghostly, soft animated avatars of real subjects have funny but poetic titles, taking them to another symbolic universe, already alienated from the materialism that characterizes capitalist production and consumption from—and from. otherwise it would be condemned to premature aging. From time to time, these things become so weak that they change completely, take on human-like characteristics and transform into terrifying thoughts or restless creatures, which evoke a mixture of attraction and repulsion. Through synthetic play, his sculptural creations evoke psychological responses that blur the boundaries between the senses, opening up a strange, absurd space of expression beyond any conventional language code.
It’s no surprise that some of his pieces are reminiscent of characters from cartoons, such as those from Disney’s. Fantasia. They tap into the same Surrealist ideas, revealing the hidden aspects of the collective unconscious and creating a living symbolic space against rigid social structures of production and rationality.
“I’ve always been interested in the story of time and how, when you create a scene or an image that speaks of the presence of a deceased person, it’s like all the things left behind are just evidence,” Belanger explained. “The viewer can reach out and enter the narrative.” In this way, his works become relics—relics that evoke the presence of people and their stories without revealing the real subjects. By combining beauty, nostalgia and humor with the motif of capitalist consumerism, Belanger evokes certain psychological responses, allowing us to connect with narratives and emotional associations. In this sense, they also serve as reminders after loss and absence, contrasting the restless cycle of use and destruction by freezing in time and preserving the emotional values associated with the original products.
The artist admits that it is impossible to escape the consumer driven reality that surrounds us. Therefore, his main source of inspiration is the flood of products and images he encounters every day. “I live in New York,” he says, “and most of the time I ride my bike.” “I feel like I’m passing through this capitalist center and I’m seeing more every time. I don’t think you can exist today and not be filled with the kind of sweet picture or pictures made to touch our desires. I am a visual sponge; I take everything I like.”
During this use, Belanger creates an important conflict between readily available and mass-produced objects and the painstaking craftsmanship behind his version of those objects. Using ceramics, wood and other natural and traditional materials, he emphasizes the handmade, tactile nature of his sculptures, which he emphasizes with the presence of material things that transform them into “artifacts” and cultural records of the society of the time and the state of our civilization. This focus on crafts interrupts the endless flow of products and advertising, giving these objects a new weight and a new personality, allowing them to stand out from the homogenized world of consumer goods and acquire a unique identity.
These layers of interpretation add depth to Belanger’s practice, especially when you consider how, in photography, his art often resembles digital images created by AI based on input about our human needs. “I think it’s fun to create something that exists in the world, but when it comes to photography, it can be like the idea of artificial intelligence,” said Belanger.
This concept complicates the relationship between his creations and the real things that inspire them, highlighting how Belanger’s artistic process absorbs and transforms these influences into new material forms—similar to how AI processes and reinterprets data on human consumer behavior. Thus, his work reflects the meaning and value of objects and products, a dialogue that gains more relevance as the data itself becomes more valuable than the physical objects it represents. Despite these complexities, Belanger’s art ultimately encourages us to appreciate the materiality of the things we create, interact with, and integrate into our lives.
Genesis Belanger’s “In the Right Situations We’re Inseparable” opens at Pace London on October 9th and will remain on view until November 9th.
