The group exhibition Pâte-à-Sel Brussels, organized in collaboration with Stems Gallery and the artist initiative Galerie Zotto, founded in 2022 by Léo Luccioni, Harold Lechien, and Romain Zacchi, opened to the public in Brussels on January 23. Bringing together works by a total of 66 artists, the exhibition explores the tensions between art and economy through the simplest materials, such as flour, water, and salt. By incorporating the everyday and the ordinary into artistic practice, the exhibition creates a critical space that reflects on the uncertainties of our time through the fragility of the material.
In this exhibition, :mentalKLINIK presents “Violently Simple” (2025), offering an ironic perspective on the capitalist culture’s fetishization of success and happiness. Combining references to minimalism, conceptual art, and pop culture, this work features a structure made of salt dough letters, resembling something between a cake and bread. “Violently Simple” exposes the fragility of spectacle and everyday practices through this material, which is partially burned and destined to crack and decay over time.
Pâte-à-Sel Brussels, which transforms Stems Gallery into a kitchen-like environment, serves as a reminder that art can break free from market-driven frameworks and that powerful narratives can be built with simple materials. Removing art from the realm of the rare and valuable, it places it within the everyday. The exhibition is open to visitors at Stems Gallery (Rue du Prince Albert 4, 1050 Ixelles, Brussels) until February 23, 2025.
