MAXIME CHABAL
- STORY OF THE EYE
- GHOST IMAGE
- PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE
- ALTER_ATION
-
DE PROFUNDIS
- DOUBLE EXPOSURE
- CORE (CsO)
- SOLEIL DE PLOMB
- UN CHANT D’AMOUR
-
UNTITLED (After Grünewald)
- HARDBEAT
Based in Berlin
chabal.maxime@gmail.com
My artistic practice focuses on the human body and the complexity surrounding its representation. While my work may initially appear cold or clinical, closer inspection reveals delicacy, tenderness, and fragility. Central to my practice is the use of materials—particularly metals—which I manipulate through various techniques to challenge their presumed solidity.
Across installations, sculptures, and collages, recurring and haunting images emerge, situating the work within a collective and affected history. These evanescent, dissident figures enter into dialogue with my critical research on Western architecture and the history of health. My practice examines how bodies are made visible, interpreted, and regulated through systems of representation.
I create spaces and objects that oscillate between exposure and concealment, inviting encounters in which material surfaces register traces of bodies, gazes, and histories. In doing so, the work reveals tensions between scientific objectivity and embodied experience.
To pursue this research, I collaborated with professionals from diverse fields, including immunologists, biologists, neuropsychologists, and historians of science and health. These exchanges allowed me to examine how regimes of knowledge are constructed, and how their hegemonic structures shape what can be seen, named, and excluded. Using strategies close to abstraction, I resist reproducing a sterile aesthetic that would impose fixed or rigid representations of bodies. Instead, by leaving space for vulnerability and roughness, I expose these constraining frameworks, whose precariousness becomes the site for new forms of porosity.
Studies
2021 - 2024 Master of Fine Arts, Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (DE)
Classes of Pia Stadtbäumer & Kader Attia
2018 - 2021 Bachelor of Fine Arts, ENSBA National School of Fine Arts, Lyon (FR)
Selected exhibitions
2025
FUTURE CONTINUOUS, Kunsthaus Hamburg (DE)
Planned Obsolescence, MediaMarkt village, Hamburg (DE)
FORVER UNLIMITED, Crack Bellmer, Berlin (DE)
2024
abyss abyss abyss, frappant galerie, Hamburg (DE)
Day & Night, galerie Gruppe Motto, Hamburg (DE)
Separation of powers, AUF MONTAGE, Golden Puddle, Hamburg (DE)
2023
HOMOÖSTASE, frappant galerie, Hamburg (DE), (curator)
It’s human nature ?, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnof, Hamburg (DE)
UNIVOLVED JUNCTIONS, Culterimgallery, Berlin (DE)
Relate to..., ICAT, Hamburg (DE)
Imagining health, ICAT, Hamburg (DE)
2022
Non Knowledge, laughter and the moving image, ICAT, Hamburg (DE)
Tensions, Kuenstlerische Tatsachen, Jena (DE)
Wetland, Hardrives, Hardwares, Studio Peragine, Hambourg (DE)
I_U_SO_MUCH_RIGHT_NOW, villa Magdalena, Hamburg, with Aliha Thalien (duo show) (DE)
A single Violent Transplant, Théâtre des expositions, Paris (FR)
2021
I’ve never promised you a rose garden, EINSTELLUNGSRAUM e. V, Hamburg (DE)
Daylight, all night long, monopole, Lyon (FR)
Il n’y avait plus d’été, Bac à sable, Lyon (FR)
2020
Système D), Secret location, Vaulx en Velin, (FR)
Rendez la chambre forte, 27 rue Hypollite Flandrin, Lyon (FR)
Performances
2024
Separation of powers, AUF MONTAGE, Golden Puddle, Hamburg (DE)
2023
5to9, M.I.N.I.S.T.R.Y, HFBK Lerchenfeld 2, Hamburg (DE)
2022
Anesthesia, A single violet transplant, Théâtre des expositions, Paris (FR)
2020
Ex-Nihlo with Bastien Charmette, CNSMD Lyon (FR)
2018
Serie of 3 performances, His touch changed everything, collaboration with Tii Ansio, London (FR)
Prize/Residencies
2025
Arbeitsstipendium für bildende Künstlerinnen und Künstler, Hamburg (DE)
2022
Deutschlandstipendium, HFBK (DE)
2022
Art&Science residency program, Kuenstlerische Tatsachen, Jena (DE)
2021
Performance residency program, Bac à Sable, Lyon (FR)
2021
Prize from Kenza Fondation, Paris, France (FR)