MAZE Art Gstaad

Date: 05 Feb 2025

Karen Jones

Pace is pleased to participate in the second-ever edition of Art Gstaad with a solo presentation of new and recent works by New York based artist Genesis Belanger.

Known for her work across porcelain and stoneware, metal, wood, and painting, Belanger creates tableaux that draw from, and critique, the aesthetics of capitalist production and consumption. The sculptures she has made for Art Gstaad explore the consequences of overwhelm, each work representing a mode of self-soothing that range from the quotidian to the hedonistic.

Describing her works as signifiers—images that represent a concept or object—Belanger has developed a visual language that is universally accessible to viewers. Her recent practice has embraced formal reduction, exemplified in Impolite to Look, 2025, which depicts various toiletries lined up in a bathroom cabinet. Inspired by overlaps between tromp l’oeil and Cubism, Belanger has cropped the view and flattened the picture plane by discarding with the shelves’ cavities altogether and rendering the cosmetics in relief. This pared-down approach sharpens the focus, allowing the artwork to deliver greater impact with fewer elements.

Anchoring the booth, the life-sized sculptures Even-Tempered and Unflappable, both 2025, depict a pair of anthropomorphised working lamps. With folded arms and flat, neutral hues, they evoke a retreat from the confrontation of difficult contemporary narratives. Other works, such as They Ate Cake and Provisions, both 2025, explore a spectrum of edible comforts. This new body of work operates on a dual plane: while representing objects and gestures of solace, the artworks themselves serve as self-referential antidotes to an increasingly volatile world.

Belanger, celebrated for her distinctive approach to ceramics, hand-builds rather than casts every element of her sculptures. Her idiosyncratic visual language—characterized by enlarged forms, airbrushed finishes, and muted tones—is achieved by mixing pigment directly into the clay before firing, leaving the surfaces unglazed. Belanger’s presentation in Gstaad follows her successful exhibition with Pace in London last year. This show marked an exciting evolution of subject and material in the artist’s practice, including the use of a richer palette and the creation of sculptures that can be placed both in and outdoors.

Subscribe to the Citywealth Weekly Newsletter to learn more about Private Wealth Management.

Read more about art

• The Smart Way to Donate and Invest in Art
• The Billion-Dollar Art Vaults: Secrets of Freeports Revealed
• Classic Art London
• Claes Oldenburg: Multiples
• The Art Basel & UBS Global Art Market Report 2025 – Insights
• London Original Print Fair – 40th Anniversary
• London Art Fair 2024: review
• London Art Fair opens for 2024
• Art Basel: the ultimate guide
• Exploring the Modern Art Market
• Interest and investment: art market insights
• Untitled Art announces new prizes & partners (Miami Beach)
• London Gallery Weekend closes its third edition
• Insights into London Art Week
• The New National Portrait Gallery
• Yamo Lates in Margate
• The Decorative Fair – Autumn edition
• Frieze-for-all at No. 9 Cork Street
• Fabulous Frieze
• The US Art Market
• Art & Sustainability: evolving trends and traditions
• Online art sales double in value
• Art is too easy to trace to be used for bribes
• 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair special projects
• Exhibitions announced for London Art Week’s summer programme
• PAD London celebrates 15th anniversary
• All I want for Christmas is… $450m Da Vinci painting
• Angelina Giovani, Flynn & Giovani Art Provenance Research (Q&A)
• Unlocking the world of passion investing (incl. ART SG)
• ‘Rising Star’ selected to exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery
• Mari-Claudia Jiménez to launch Withers Art and Advisory in the US