Genesis Belanger: Through the Eye of a Needle

September 21, 2020 to May 9, 2021 | South Gallery, Balcony Gallery

Through the Eye of a Needle is the first major solo museum exhibition of New York-based artist Genesis Belanger (b. 1978), whose practice spans sculptures and tableaux, primarily composed out of porcelain, stoneware, and upholstery. Anthropomorphizing common household objects--lipsticks with wagging tongues, lamps with ladies' pearls, and tins with doey-eyed sardines--Belanger's methodology blends Surrealism and Pop art with a self-possessed feminism informed by a career inside the fashion and advertising industries. Debuting an entirely new body of work specially conceived for The Aldrich, Belanger will create her largest and most elaborate mise-en-scène to date: dozens of animated objects arranged on ghostly furnishings that suggest narratives about our anxiety afflicted present. The artist's first museum publication, featuring an essay by the exhibition's curator, Amy Smith-Stewart, will accompany the show.

Small sculptural food items arranged on a gray table

Installation Images

Side view of a oblong table with a gray pleated tablecloth, with clay sculptures of food items such as a ham, slice of pie, deviled eggs, and asparagus.

Piano with gray slipcover covered with clay sculptures of extinguished candles and other objects and a side view of a chair with a gray slipcover.

Clay sculptures of extinguished candles with a surrealist bouquet with pastel-colored curtains in the background.

Overall installation view with gray slipcovered furnishings with surrealist clay objects and a large-scale multi-colored curtain on the back wall.

Overall view with several gray slipcovered furnishings with small surrealist clay objects and a large-scale multi-colored curtain installation to the left.

Gray slipcovered chair to the right, gray mantle with bouquet and fruit bowl at center, gray pouf with bouquet at right.

Pastel multi-colored curtain panels with two manicured hands pulling back two pieces of fabric.

Virtual Tour

Genesis Belanger: Through the Eye of a Needle Virtual Walkthrough

Audio Tour

The Aldrich · Genesis Belanger: Through the Eye of a Needle

Press Release

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Press

“'Belanger’s work blends Méret Oppenheim and Marisol with a self-possessed feminism that uses humor to speak to notable afflictions of this century: desires, addictions, and anxieties specific to a hyperkinetic image-obsessed present,' exhibition curator Amy Smith-Stewart.”
—Galerie

“Upon cursory first glance, Genesis Belanger’s artwork appears dreamy, almost innocent. But the sculptures are far from it.”
—Interior Design

“These vignettes – both humorous and unsettling – tap into our cultural psyche, suggesting stories of consumerism, addiction and gender dynamics.”
—The Design Edit

“In her gleefully strange, pastel-tinted objects—devised from a mix of porcelain and stoneware clays—Belanger riffs on the sorts of thoughtful-but-ultimately-tired gestures that people make in sympathy”
—Vogue

“‘I was thinking of how any transition, even a positive one, results in a period of grieving, because change is inherently a loss. That brought me to the question: how do we support people in the most extreme circumstances?’”
—Wallpaper*

“Belanger’s is a world of mannered formalities, in which the decorum of mourning is often at odds with the realities of grief.”
—Brooklyn Rail

“[Belanger's] clean lines convey the warm efficiency of master craft and her confectionary hues wear the dull, inoffensive sheen that can be polished from imported rare woods.”
—Frieze

Funders

Generous support for Genesis Belanger: Through the Eye of a Needle is provided by The Amadeo Family, Crozier, Diana Bowes and James Torrey, Linda and Michael Dugan, Patricia and Lawrence Kemp, Kristina and Philip Larson, and Julie Phillips. Media support is provided by Connecticut Cottages & Gardens (CTC&G).