In Centrale | vitrine - a veritable ‘Christmas window’ for the occasion - Grégoire Motte stages a new version of L'apparition mythologique de Witloof. It's about the birth, in the midst of the 1830 revolution, in a dark cellar in Schaerbeek, of the most contemporary and troubling of salads, and the delight of the farmer who discovers it, a veritable agricultural Pygmalion. This episode, drawn from a Belgian founding myth, forms the main element of the great chicory trilogy¹, a project initiated by Motte in 2019 with composer Gabriel Mattei. Grégoire Motte's work is made up of stories that he presents in a variety of forms, combining visual work and literary practice. Historical episodes, personal adventures, real or invented myths become novels, lectures, films, musical pieces or objects...
In Centrale | vitrine - a veritable ‘Christmas window’ for the occasion - Grégoire Motte stages a new version of L'apparition mythologique de Witloof. It's about the birth, in the midst of the 1830 revolution, in a dark cellar in Schaerbeek, of the most contemporary and troubling of salads, and the delight of the farmer who discovers it, a veritable agricultural Pygmalion. This episode, drawn from a Belgian founding myth, forms the main element of the great chicory trilogy¹, a project initiated by Motte in 2019 with composer Gabriel Mattei. Grégoire Motte's work is made up of stories that he presents in a variety of forms, combining visual work and literary practice. Historical episodes, personal adventures, real or invented myths become novels, lectures, films, musical pieces or objects with multiple statuses. Grégoire Motte was born in Lille in 1976. He lives and works in Brussels. In 2004 he started making ties, until 2009, when he found a large quantity of gold in a bar in Tunis. In 2012, he co-founded the Artists Club Coffre Fort² in Brussels. In spring 2014, he undertook the molding of a leg of Miss Valenciennois. The cast failed: it was the real starting point of the great chicory trilogy. ¹ Witloof, l’endive originelle ; Blanche Endive, elle invente les bas en chicorée ; Witty, après l’apparition. A presentation of the trilogy will be given at Cinéma Nova in January 2026. ² The ACCF is an exhibition space founded with artists Thibaut Espiau and Ištvan Išt Huzjan, housed in the enormous vault of a former jeweller's shop.