Sébastien Mehal: City as Collective Body at Galerie Hoang Beli

Curated by TAK Contemporary, Sébastien Mehal's solo exhibition 'Ville autoportrait' at Galerie Hoang Beli presents the city as a collective body shaped by individual psychologies. Growing up in Fort-de-France, Martinique, Mehal witnessed architectural mutation as colorful houses gave way to concrete blocks, leading him to oscillate between art and architecture. The exhibition features works like 'Downtown 2018', a 180x180 cm monochrome referencing Malevich's white-on-white, superimposing Paris, Tokyo, and New York into a friable plaster-like canvas. 'Aluminium City' is a composite installation evoking scaffolding, with fragmented cartography, compact blocks, mirrors, and black syringe projections reflecting fleeting anonymous identities. 'Angle social' uses a broken mirror reflecting a red block, hung high on an angle to symbolize social disparities and inaccessible prosperity. 'Ville du monde' presents photographs capturing intimate scenes—a flickering light, a bed shaped by a body, a view of an isolation room—suggesting that urban and social environments shape our psyche. '28.03.07 IDENTITÉ PROVISOIRE' shows a woman looking at herself, a mise en abyme referencing Jeff Wall's 'Picture for Women', emphasizing identity as mutable and collective. The exhibition argues that cities reflect our mental states and that self-discovery requires looking outward.