Marc Camille Chaimowicz - Nuit Américaine

Marc Camille Chaimowicz is an understated pioneer, who has steadfastly sailed against the prevailing artistic winds since the start of his career in London in the 1970s. Folding together past and present, Chaimowicz’s exhibition at WIELS brings together three work groups, all examining intimacy, domesticity, and the desire to create one own’s context:

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"To design my living space in a different way came to feel like a vital, physical need. I felt the need to reverse the traditional (male) viewpoint, which consists in despising the domestic side of things."

Marc Camille Chaimowicz (in: Canet, Marie, 'Reverie. Its Practice and Means of Display', Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2022)

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Born in Post-war Paris and educated in England, Chaimowicz inhabits a singular position at the crossroads of two art-scenes, cultures and languages. Like the artist himself, his refined yet playful work defies easy categorisation, demanding attention to detail while remaining generous and infused with beauty. Resisting claims for art’s autonomy, Chaimowicz embraces the decorative arts. Over the past 50 years, he has intertwined design, painting, print-making, collage and his daily life into a highly personal vocabulary. He continues to be of great importance and influence to younger artists, not least due to his constant yet subtle challenging of the role of art and in his development of a queer aesthetic.