MICHAEL BEUTLER – BOZAR MONUMENTAL: FLOW MOTION | BOZAR, BRUSSELS, 06.27.25 – 08.31.25

From summer 2025 onwards, Bozar will be inviting an artist to create an installation in the Horta Hall: Bozar Monumental. Something similar to the Turbine Hall in Tate Modern? Yes, but in this case tailored to what architect Victor Horta once conceived as a sculpture hall. Michael Beutler sets the ball rolling.

Michael Beutler’s workshop is based in Berlin. His studio looks like a cross between an impeccably arranged DIY shop and an industrial workplace. With an array of materials, homemade gadgets, and well-honed methods, he and his team manufacture the components for his installations. The creative process is more important than the final result. Finishing touches are always made on-site, and local materials and methods are often used.

First and foremost, Butler views the Horta Hall as a passageway, not an exhibition space. He wants to turn it into a place where people can stay, an orientation point. For this reason, he chooses what he calls a “floating situation”. He is building a cylindrical structure for the middle of the hall. This edifice will sit atop a water feature, with a revolving platform in its centre, where visitors can sit. We are in the midst of a massive zoetrope, an early predecessor to the movie projector that can be found at the Cinematek. A zoetrope consists of a vertical cylinder with slits and drawings on its interior wall. If you rotate the cylinder and look through the viewing holes, the images blend together into a primitive animation. In Beutler’s design, we are not just spectators, but participants, gazing out through the holes and animating the surrounding space. Thankful that we have come to take a look.

Over the past few weeks, Michael Beutler and his team have been hard at work transforming the Horta Hall, step by step. As always, he works with hand-powered tools of his own design. For Beutler, the process is just as important as the result: open, collaborative, and visible. He develops his own techniques, often produces his own building materials, and responds to each space like a true bricoleur — guided by the moment, the place, and the possibilities at hand.
His installations are playful and imaginative, inviting interaction and wonder. This latest construction is no exception: it is built on site, in dialogue with the architecture and shaped by the team’s hands.

Text © BOZAR

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