The photobook Permanent Concern consists of a series of smartphone photographs that Cavalier took in the Netherlands in 2021. The objects and situations that he portrays are often recognizable and ordinary: from a plastic table to a brick wall blotched with paint or a girl’s skipping rope. The full zoom used by Cavalier reveals—in much the same way as his presentation of the photographs as monochrome laser prints does—the inherent structure of his subjects and how, as “foreign objects”, they break with the original order. In this way, Cavalier emphasizes the various aspects of urban planning, including among them the unintentional, the “mishap”, which he characterizes as a quality that allows room for a subjective and personal use of the cities in which we live.

Bertrand Cavalier, b. 1989 in France, is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brussels.