TEXT - THE FAITH SHOW
05.2025
05.2025
The Faith Show is the first solo presentation in Antwerp by Brazilian-born, Antwerp-based artist Gabriel Siams. This exhibition is a deeply personal yet public staging of lived experience, offered as a means to provoke questions, propose new ways of thinking, and, most importantly, to confront a new reality. The show features an installation composed of four distinct works: a two-channel video, a sound piece, and two object-based sculptures.
The Faith Show has a long and layered backstory: one that stretches back to the artist’s move to Antwerp, possibly to a childhood testimony, or maybe even further, to the mythic origins found in the Book of Genesis. At its core, the exhibition is Gabriel’s reflection on his past within the Evangelical church, shaped by a devout upbringing in Brazil. It is also a symbolic, almost theatrical re-enactment of a biblical journey, reframed through the lens of his recent change of reality. This exhibition is a meditation on will, devotion, and faith, charting Gabriel Siams’ path through self-reflection, physical endurance, and personal sacrifice. What visitors encounter in the exhibition are relics that have crossed the Atlantic as vessels of memory, presented with the clear intention of spreading the word of God through the artist’s own experience. These testimonies of memory and carriers of his mission are bound by a single, powerful element: oil.
Much like holy water, olive oil holds deep ritualistic meaning in Evangelical churches, used to bless, baptize, and heal. In Brazil, olive oil carries both spiritual and socioeconomic weight. Regarded as a noble household item, it is mostly reserved for religious practices due to its elevated cost, while most families rely on soy oil for everyday use. The artist calls attention to this symbolic and practical distinction, using it as a lens through which to question these rituals. This gesture becomes part of a larger, camp-inflected subversion of religious iconography, playfully cheating the system, while still honoring its emotive power.
At the heart of the exhibition is a two-channel video work, which Siams describes as proof of destiny, the result of a process shaped by persistence, coincidence and luck. In one channel, we witness a consecrated priest, unaware of the intervention, blessing 21 bottles of supermarket soy oil, effectively transforming them into a holy treasure. The scene becomes a humorous meditation on faith and transformation: the priest, dressed in civilian clothing, casually reads from his phone while confidently performing the blessing.
The second channel focuses solely on his hands, a gesture profoundly charged with religious iconography. The triangular arrangement of the bottles and the camera’s gaze evoke not only religious ceremony but also capitalist staging and subliminal sexual suggestion, echoing the visual language of televised advertising. The title of the exhibition, The Faith Show (O Show da Fé), directly references a real evangelical broadcast, drawing a parallel between the aesthetics of mass media and mass religion.
As a continuation of this gesture, perfume sample bottles are also on display, available for visitors to take from the space’s mailbox. Each vial is individually labeled and enclosed in an envelope. These small vessels function as carriers of this new, hybridized God, both conceptual souvenirs and tools for cultural connection. Installed above this arrangement is the sound piece Chorus of Fire, which emits angelic tones that resemble an organ, subtly blended with electronic synthesizers. This celestial composition, activated by an automatic ceiling light, welcomes visitors into the space and invites them to take one of the artist’s messages. Through this act, Siams proposes a new model of faith, shaped by personal rules, cultural ambiguity, and artistic agency. Echoing the priest’s words in the video, those who receive this anointed oil are said to gain authority, knowledge, and the boldness to lead.
Whether by chance or design, the artist shares his name with the angel Gabriel, the divine messenger in the Book of Daniel, tasked with delivering God’s word to the earth. The final work in the exhibition brings this full circle: a commemorative plaque inscribed with the biblical phrase “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” Here, the attention shifts again to the priest (or more generally to the evangelical belief system) where Siams, through the framework of the exhibition, assumes a kind of sanctified authority. The plaque, typically used to mark historic events or sacred spaces, becomes a tool of empowerment, declaring and materializing the artist’s final vision.
Ultimately, The Faith Show is not about certainty but about transformation of materials, memory, and subversion of classic images. Gabriel Siams invites us into a deeply personal yet universally resonant journey, where belief is not static doctrine but a living, and always shifting force. Through the image of the oil the exhibition becomes both an altar and a stage, a space where faith is questioned, reclaimed, and reimagined.
Gabriel Siams, Oude Beurs 41, Antwerp
The Faith Show has a long and layered backstory: one that stretches back to the artist’s move to Antwerp, possibly to a childhood testimony, or maybe even further, to the mythic origins found in the Book of Genesis. At its core, the exhibition is Gabriel’s reflection on his past within the Evangelical church, shaped by a devout upbringing in Brazil. It is also a symbolic, almost theatrical re-enactment of a biblical journey, reframed through the lens of his recent change of reality. This exhibition is a meditation on will, devotion, and faith, charting Gabriel Siams’ path through self-reflection, physical endurance, and personal sacrifice. What visitors encounter in the exhibition are relics that have crossed the Atlantic as vessels of memory, presented with the clear intention of spreading the word of God through the artist’s own experience. These testimonies of memory and carriers of his mission are bound by a single, powerful element: oil.
Much like holy water, olive oil holds deep ritualistic meaning in Evangelical churches, used to bless, baptize, and heal. In Brazil, olive oil carries both spiritual and socioeconomic weight. Regarded as a noble household item, it is mostly reserved for religious practices due to its elevated cost, while most families rely on soy oil for everyday use. The artist calls attention to this symbolic and practical distinction, using it as a lens through which to question these rituals. This gesture becomes part of a larger, camp-inflected subversion of religious iconography, playfully cheating the system, while still honoring its emotive power.
At the heart of the exhibition is a two-channel video work, which Siams describes as proof of destiny, the result of a process shaped by persistence, coincidence and luck. In one channel, we witness a consecrated priest, unaware of the intervention, blessing 21 bottles of supermarket soy oil, effectively transforming them into a holy treasure. The scene becomes a humorous meditation on faith and transformation: the priest, dressed in civilian clothing, casually reads from his phone while confidently performing the blessing.
The second channel focuses solely on his hands, a gesture profoundly charged with religious iconography. The triangular arrangement of the bottles and the camera’s gaze evoke not only religious ceremony but also capitalist staging and subliminal sexual suggestion, echoing the visual language of televised advertising. The title of the exhibition, The Faith Show (O Show da Fé), directly references a real evangelical broadcast, drawing a parallel between the aesthetics of mass media and mass religion.
As a continuation of this gesture, perfume sample bottles are also on display, available for visitors to take from the space’s mailbox. Each vial is individually labeled and enclosed in an envelope. These small vessels function as carriers of this new, hybridized God, both conceptual souvenirs and tools for cultural connection. Installed above this arrangement is the sound piece Chorus of Fire, which emits angelic tones that resemble an organ, subtly blended with electronic synthesizers. This celestial composition, activated by an automatic ceiling light, welcomes visitors into the space and invites them to take one of the artist’s messages. Through this act, Siams proposes a new model of faith, shaped by personal rules, cultural ambiguity, and artistic agency. Echoing the priest’s words in the video, those who receive this anointed oil are said to gain authority, knowledge, and the boldness to lead.
Whether by chance or design, the artist shares his name with the angel Gabriel, the divine messenger in the Book of Daniel, tasked with delivering God’s word to the earth. The final work in the exhibition brings this full circle: a commemorative plaque inscribed with the biblical phrase “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” Here, the attention shifts again to the priest (or more generally to the evangelical belief system) where Siams, through the framework of the exhibition, assumes a kind of sanctified authority. The plaque, typically used to mark historic events or sacred spaces, becomes a tool of empowerment, declaring and materializing the artist’s final vision.
Ultimately, The Faith Show is not about certainty but about transformation of materials, memory, and subversion of classic images. Gabriel Siams invites us into a deeply personal yet universally resonant journey, where belief is not static doctrine but a living, and always shifting force. Through the image of the oil the exhibition becomes both an altar and a stage, a space where faith is questioned, reclaimed, and reimagined.
Gabriel Siams, Oude Beurs 41, Antwerp
