WHITE CUBE
In perpetual movement, the Uhoda Collection is revealed, piece by piece, in a display window on the Rue St. Paul, in the heart of Liège.
© JL DERU
From 12 November until 21 December 2024
Banana Head, 2010
Sculpture
Gilles BARBIER, France, 1965
Humour. Absurdity. Societal criticism.
A French artist who implemented multiple techniques, Gilles Barbier is known for his numerous clones, made of wax, in a burlesque style. The banana has been a recurring element in his vocabulary since the beginning of the 2000s. Not only does it evoke humour, the fall, and a gag, but for the artist, the banana is also one of the elements that raises the notion of slipping and slides.
In this respect, Banana Head (Traumatic Insemination) is particularly representative of the artist’s obsession with this motif. In 2010, the artist, taking on the classic exercise of the self-portrait, created a self-derisive series of busts of himself that he ‘mistreats’, cuts into pieces (Butter Head), crushes (Squeezed Head), lobotomises (Peanut Head) or finally, ‘inseminates’, in the case of Banana Head.