Art Brussels

For Art Brussels 2026, États d’espace transforms the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles booth into an immersive environment where photography, sculpture, video, and drawing form a critical space rather than a simple exhibition venue. Conceived as an organism rather than a set, the booth becomes the very substance of the artwork: a physical space where the tension between perceived freedom and structural constraint is made tangible.

Two large polished-aluminium sculptures, constructed from measurements drawn from domestic architecture, occupy half of the booth. They outline the blueprint of a minimal dwelling whose transparency allows the gaze to circulate, yet whose proportions induce a persistent sense of narrowness. Visitors can enter, move through, and physically engage with these structures, experiencing a space that appears open while subtly imposing posture and behaviour.

A second volume—a mobile plexiglass closet designed to human scale—reflects the entire installation and can be freely moved. This “closet-body” reconfigures the booth according to movement, revealing the performative and normative dimensions of the spaces that surround us.

Around these volumes, a photograph from the Permanent Concern series, three sculpture drawings, and a video of a façade under construction complete the installation. They extend the recurring themes in Bertrand Cavalier’s work: compression, friction, constrained geometry, and an attentiveness to forms that shape our gestures as much as they frame them.

États d’espace thus continues a practice in which Bertrand Cavalier—starting with photography—now explores the image as a field of forces and sensations. The installation offers a physical experience that makes the invisible norms of our environments perceptible and questions the political dimension of contemporary living space.