Michaël Aerts explores the way in which humanity develops culturally through mobility. Mobility as a driving force behind our cultural development. Within this context mobility is investigated on a physical, intellectual and mental level.

Michaël Aerts is in the first place a sculptor. All works, both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional, start from the parameters of sculpture; light and dark, open and closed volumes; visible and invisible; space and place,… An important aspect is the fact that we can not see everything at once. To view an object in space we have to move around it. It is impossible to see everything at the same time. In order to try to understand reality, people have developed abstract thinking models.

Whereas in the past sculpture was often concerned with the influence of the object on space, Michaël Aerts’ work focuses more on the influence of space on the object. He developed 'The Obelisk', a mobile obelisk that has been traveling to various places and contexts all over the world. Going from New York - the city of freedom, to Minsk, a city in a dictatorial regime. Going from a castle park to the bustle of London. In this way he investigates the shift of meaning of the symbol according to the place where it is shown. The work also examines how people control and display their environment through abstract models such as the map and the perspective. The oeuvre is composed of a simple iconography that can be understood from different cultural backgrounds; a cardboard box, an obelisk, a map, ....