I think the 20th century reaches its highest expression on the highway. Everything is there: the speed and violence of our age; the strange love affair with the machine, with its own death.

J.G. Ballard

Albert Baronian is pleased to present the second solo exhibition of Xavier Mary, entitled « OVER DRIVE ». The works presented here clearly exemplify the themes and fascinations that have been informing his practice ever since his solo presentation at BOZAR in 2006. By giving a contemporary twist to the Duchampian ready-made, the artist relocates industrial objects within the white cube, isolating them from our usual, everyday conception. From carpet motifs to video games, from Khmer temples to hi-res three-dimensional renderings, hybridity is a core element in the understanding of Xavier Mary’s work. His position as an artist is one of constant negotiation between different visual and value regimes, connecting tradition and avant-garde, sincerity and irony, past and future, actual and virtual.