Soft Gravity Holds
For her exhibition in Brussels, Olivia Cognet opens with a 1.60-meter fountain, a central and manifesto piece.
Loosely inspired by the Manneken-Pis, the work shifts its spirit: here, no figure, no anecdote — only an unstable architecture, traversed by water. The gesture becomes structure, then dissolves.
Crafted in black stoneware with a fine chamotte, the fountain unfolds as an almost archaic form, somewhere between ruin and organism. Water circulates without hierarchy, slipping from one basin to another, overflowing, escaping. Nothing is contained; everything is in motion.
This piece inaugurates the exhibition and gives rise to a broader body of work: a collection of black brutalist furniture conceived as a direct extension of this initial form. Tables, seating, and sculptural lamps emerge from the same vocabulary, as if the material itself continued to grow, settle, and erode.
The exhibition unfolds in collaboration with Objects With Narratives, located in the heart of the Sablon district, on Place du Grand Sablon, within a Beaux-Arts building from the early 20th century — a former fur manufactory later transformed into a landmark of the Brussels art scene.
More than a gallery, Objects With Narratives develops a singular approach to design: a hybrid territory between art and object, where each piece is conceived as a narrative. Beyond function or aesthetics, their practice engages with the narrative charge of forms — how material, gesture, and time produce meaning.
Within this layered setting — at once domestic, industrial, and theatrical — the works find a natural resonance. The space itself becomes an extension of the exhibition: a place where design shifts from utility to experience.
Also on view are bas-reliefs, a monumental table, a two-meter chandelier, as well as lamps and objects situated at the threshold between art and design.
More than an exhibition, the whole composes a landscape: a gradual ascent of matter, from water to form.
About the artist
French artist and designer Olivia Cognet is based with her team in Vallauris, in the South of France, a historic cradle of ceramics where Picasso, Capron and so many others shaped the modern language of clay.
From this exceptional context, she continues toexplore ceramics as the fertile medium through which she expresses her boundless creativity. With the freedom this material affords to explore every type of shape and size, she creates monumental bas-reliefs and giant totems as well as chairs, tables, lamps and vases.
These unique pieces, handmade by the artist in her studio, all share the same high aesthetic, abstract and graphic standards. She draws inspiration from the lights and shadows of the landscapes of the Côte d’Azur, as well as from her years in California, with its modernist architecture and intense nature. Infusing a modern take on the great tradition of decorative arts, her works are both functional and powerfully evocative.
Featured Collection
Explore all
