The first thing one noticed, when looking at the four sculptures that make up this exhibition, was a radical modification of the regular gallery space: Didier Vermeiren chose to occupy only the ground level, leaving the mezzanine to function as a belvedere. It was, however, only a virtual modification, in that nothing was actually changed in the architecture of the place; the site took on the general disposition of the works—like chesspieces, they defined the area they occupied and continually submitted it to a new and specific perception. (The floor, for example, with its usually unnoticeable

It would seem almost impossible—both conflictual and contradictory—to bring together two artists such as Jutta Koether and Laurent Joubert. Having said that, this exhibition, entitled “Lettres à Démocède” (Letters to Démocède), with its politically-correct alibi (a “peaceful art” of struggle against strategy), was permeated with an intuition about painting as social affect—as a language of the minority, a decentralized expression of self, marginal, a kind of savagery, or “wild parade” as Koether puts it.

Joubert’s pieces, in the form of painted panels, are the result of the juxtaposition and