courtesy Michèle Schoonjans Gallery
For his first solo exhibition at the Michèle Schoonjans Gallery, French artist Jean-Baptiste Brueder presents a sensitive and sculptural vision of Brussels. Beyond mere representation, he captures the city’s shifting essence by transforming materials and architectural elements into works that intertwine urban memory with artistic experimentation. Jean-Baptiste Brueder explores architecture as a constantly evolving organism. Inspired by the urban landscape of Brussels, he focuses on revealing the fragility and impermanence of built forms. Through sculptures and bas-reliefs made of gyproc and repurposed construction materials, he deconstructs façades and structures to expose their hidden layers. He particularly highlights the fleeting forms of architecture found in traces of Brussels' domestic...
For his first solo exhibition at the Michèle Schoonjans Gallery, French artist Jean-Baptiste Brueder presents a sensitive and sculptural vision of Brussels. Beyond mere representation, he captures the city’s shifting essence by transforming materials and architectural elements into works that intertwine urban memory with artistic experimentation. Jean-Baptiste Brueder explores architecture as a constantly evolving organism. Inspired by the urban landscape of Brussels, he focuses on revealing the fragility and impermanence of built forms. Through sculptures and bas-reliefs made of gyproc and repurposed construction materials, he deconstructs façades and structures to expose their hidden layers. He particularly highlights the fleeting forms of architecture found in traces of Brussels' domestic interiors, made visible in open construction sites. He borrows construction codes from observed urban phenomena, such as façadism. With a subtle balance between rawness and delicacy, he questions the memory of urban spaces and how architecture shapes our perception of time. His approach also involves extensive research, drawing on archival images, topographic studies, and architectural plans to better understand the urban planning issues of the construction sites he illustrates. In doing so, he recontextualizes the places he explores, weaving a dialogue between local heritage and contemporary interpretation. Adopting an in situ approach, Jean-Baptiste Brueder collects architectural fragments—window frames, cornices, load-bearing structures—and integrates them into his works. In this way, he invites us to see architecture not as a fixed and authoritative discipline, but as a sculptural, living, and malleable medium. BIOGRAPHY Jean-Baptiste Brueder (°1996, Avignon, F) lives & works in Brussels (BE). Jean-Baptiste Brueder is a French artist based in Brussels. A graduate of the Beaux-Arts of Toulouse and holder of a Master's degree in Drawing from ENSAV La Cambre, he was awarded the Médiatine Prize in 2023. He has taken part in artist residencies such as the Moonens Foundation, Poelp Brussels, and KULTXL. Jean-Baptiste Brueder has been exploring and narrating the transformations of Brussels for several years through a multidisciplinary approach that blends drawing, bas-reliefs, sculpture, and installation. This multifaceted practice is deeply influenced by his surroundings. He roams the city's neighborhoods, photographs them, creates observational drawings of elements that catch his eye, and collects discarded objects and small fragments of buildings. These gathered materials are brought back to his studio, where they become the foundation for compositions, constructions, and experiments. Imbued with the gestures of a builder, Jean-Baptiste uses construction materials that he diverts from their original function. Gyproc, an insulating material generally considered to lack artistic value, is used with great care—extracted from walls and reinvented. He approaches architecture with the freedom and imagination of a visual artist. He insists on working at his own scale, creating architectural fragments not to inhabit but to observe, thus opening a space for dialogue. Drawing on his Provençal roots, he also incorporates pigments from the Ochre Conservatory of Roussillon into his work. These natural colors, sourced from the environment in which he grew up, are used to tint his plaster bas-reliefs. In this way, Jean-Baptiste offers a sensitive and multifaceted approach to architecture, challenging the rigidity of the architectural discipline to reveal its hidden fragility.Opening Hours
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | Closed |
| Thursday | 12:00 - 18:00 |
| Friday | 12:00 - 18:00 |
| Saturday | 12:00 - 18:00 |
| Sunday | Closed |