WHY-CHROMOSOME


CHARLOTTE PÉRIN

JANUARY 23 - 25 

THE BIR
BIRMINGHAMSTRAAT 57
MOLENBEEK-SAINT-JEAN





French version




From a crowded underground train 
to the wide, empty Birminghamstreet. 
In the BIR space, large-format paintings 
display a certain type of XY chromosome.

Individuals happy to be and to take up space, 
including that offered to them by Charlotte Périn 
on her canvases. 

An uninhibited attitude 
reflected in the virtuosity of the painted surfaces. 
Colours spread in movements 
as fluid as teenagers on electric scooters.

The joyful spontaneity of this young man
sticking out his big, slobbery tongue. 
A close-up by the artist reframes the individuals, 
but they don't seem to care. 
In the gap left between the orange XL metro seats, 
XY continues to wag his tongue.

Who compresses? Who squeezes? 

Is it the artist who frames, 
or is it XY who comes to add 
a final touch of saliva to the painting? 

There is negotiation.

but not for these two women surrounding an individual 
sitting with his legs apart. 
Their bodies adapt to the residual space, 
forming a frame within the frame 
that emphasises the male presence. 
We sense the man's confidence, 
his feet firmly anchored to the ground, 
but also Charlotte Périn's determination. 
It is as though, paradoxically,
this unhealthy self-assurance
fuels the artist’s drive to assert herself.

An energy and ease that echoes the giant fresco 

by Chéri Samba, Porte de Namur, Porte de l'Amour ?
measuring 12 m by 15 m, at the entrance to the Matonge district. 

A vast, pan-African occupation of public space through images and text. 
The mural was due to return in the summer of 2025, after restoration, 
but it is still not there — and it is missed.

This spatial dynamic also resonates in Anna Raimondo's work,
Encouragements— which I discussed in a previous text.
Her work has more recently been enriched by
Q(ee)R Codes — New Boundaries BXL 1000, 
where, through QR codes placed in Brussels’ paving stones, 
one can listen to testimonies from trans, queer and non-binary people. 

Finally, I remember the poster LAISSE LES FILLES TRANQUILLES 
at the entrance to LUCA School of Arts. 
A phrase promoted by a collective 
that places anti-patriarchy messages in public spaces 
in a manner—at least formally—reminiscent of Jenny Holzer and her Inflammatory Essays.

These are all strategies for reversing the dynamics of domination. 

But sometimes this reversal begins
 in one’s own unconscious, in the intimate sphere. 
I must admit to a particular fondness for Anna Oppermann’s works. 
I am thinking in particular of a series from the 1970s 
in which she introduces parts of herself into her drawings: 
her thighs, her legs, her feet, her back, something resembling her organs. 
Never her whole being, nor her face. It is as if she were slipping through a doorframe, 
or gradually shifting the lens of her camera to include herself while holding it.

Or how, in space
public or pictorial, collective or intimate 
something is negotiated. 
Between amplitude and compression.
 
Framing, occupying, spreading out, slipping in.