Mathias Kiss takes over the Petit Palais with a mirror installation that enters into dialogue with the architecture of the site, transforming visitors’ reflections into a sensory experience of movement and encounter.
Liquid Mirror, Installation / Wood structure, mirror mosaic, 2026 Mathias Kiss takes over the Petit Palais with Liquid Mirror, an in situ installation conceived in dialogue with the architecture of the 1900 building. The installation appears as a fragmented mirrored surface, made up of square modules that seem to liquefy and move through the space. Organized according to a rigorous grid, this reflective material nevertheless behaves fluidly: it descends, unfolds, and extends across the floor, as if the monument itself were beginning to move. Its fragmentation into modules evokes the logic of the pixel, the smallest unit of the digital image. Mathias Kiss thus transposes into a heritage space a syntax specific to the technological age: the pixel leaves the screen to become architectural matter. Where architecture asserts stability and permanence, Liquid Mirror suggests a transitional state; the monument is not transformed, but seems momentarily crossed by a luminous phenomenon. Placed on the axis of L'Allégorie Le Triomphe des femmes by Georges Picard, the installation enters into dialogue with it. A luminous fall responds to the painted ascent; a multiplied presence answers the unified figure. The mirror does not propose a new image: it captures the present. Visitors appear fragmented, superimposed, integrated into the work. As part of a Nuit Blanche devoted to love, the work becomes a relational experience. Love is not illustrated; it manifests in the shared reflection, in the superimposition of silhouettes, in the presence of the other within one’s own image. Mathias Kiss, a French visual artist of Hungarian origin, was born in 1972 in Poissy and lives and works in Paris. Trained in the crafts of painting and the restoration of Monuments Historiques (Musée du Louvre), he founded the Attilalou studio in 2002. Since 2008, he has developed a singular body of work: Miroir Froissé, the 90° series, and Sky Painting, exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo and the Mobilier National. His work blurs the boundaries between fine craftsmanship, design, and contemporary art, reinventing classical codes to sculpt spaces that challenge perception. A project supported by the Fondation Loo&Lou pour l’art contemporain, under the aegis of the Fondation de Luxembourg, with the participation of the Petit-Palais - Musée des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris.
Source: paris.fr — photo: © Alice Heart © Adagp, Paris, 2026