ALINE BOUVY, Urine Mate
installation view at Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

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Strategies of Non-Cooperation I, 2016
jesmonite

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Urine Mate II,  2016
inkjet print on archival paper mounted on dibond, linoleum on wood, 230 x 190 cm

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ALINE BOUVY, Urine Mate
installation view at Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

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ALINE BOUVY, Urine Mate
installation view at Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

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Strategies of Non-Cooperation V, 2016
jesmonite

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ALINE BOUVY, Urine Mate
installation view at Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

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Urine Mate VI,  2016
inkjet print on archival paper mounted on dibond, linoleum on wood, 230 x 190 cm

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ALINE BOUVY, Urine Mate
installation view at Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

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ALINE BOUVY, Urine Mate
installation view at Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

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Urine Mate III (detail), 2016
inkjet print on archival paper mounted on dibond, linoleum on wood

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ALINE BOUVY, Urine Mate
installation view at Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

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ALINE BOUVY, Urine Mate
installation view at Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

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ALINE BOUVY, Urine Mate
installation view at Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

all images courtesy of the artist and Albert Baronian gallery, Brussels

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If you google ‘Urine Mate‘, you will find that it’s the title of 2013 song by the British duo Sleaford Mods.  The track from the album Austerity Dogs is a rather visceral punk poetry revealing mordant observations on British life. A few days ago, before the opening of ALINE BOUVY‘s solo exhibition at Albert Baronian gallery in Brussels which actually takes the same title , the Belgian artist explained to agendamagazine.be that she ‘wanted to present herself as ‘urine mate’ of anyone who wants. 

This cheeky statement and the invitation card for which she posed ‘in studio clothing, no make-up, hair uncombed in a position that recalls 1980s Calvin Klein ads’ – a brand she evoked for their unisex and more recently ‘gender free‘ products -reveal the essence of her new exhibition.

Urine Mate presents a series of photographs of male nudes layered with weeds picked in waste lots around Brussels as well as a series of sculptures of dogs recalling bas-relief. The dogs thanks to their behaviors, seem to be more stray dogs than domesticated ones. The photographs avoid directness and show in a shy way blurred fragments of male bodies.

To conclude with ALINE BOUVY‘s words, ‘ultimately, what really interests me is the question of what I can do with the structures of power that are imposed on me in today’s society. What I do in my work, on my scale and using the things that are around me, allows me to question and to undermine those power structures. I think that can also be done through very simple things like our relationship with what is clean or dirty, with our own waste, such as urine, for example’.

Urine Mate is on view at Albert Baronian gallery in Brussels until February 27, 2016

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