Aside from the Grand Place, Manneken Pis, and European Commission, Brussels also offers a dynamic art scene that certainly doesn’t come up short against other European capitals. The crown jewel of this overlooked art city is undoubtedly the Brussels Gallery Weekend, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary. With 41 galleries, a dozen institutions, and countless artist-run spaces participating, Brussels Gallery Weekend proved that the city’s vibrant art scene can’t be dampened by the rain. Here are five key moments from the rain-ravaged weekend.
Hooligan Energy at Marcin Dudek’s “Steps and Marches”
“Our studios are in the same place, we have the same gallery, and we are married. So far so good,” laughed French artist Amélie Bouvier during her husband Marcin Dudek’s solo show, “Steps and Marches”, at Harlan Levy Project. The show takes as its departure point the artist’s teenage memories of the Cracovia football club, and the hooligan energy it bursted with. Abstract paintings, sculptural works made from memorabilia, and an installation of concrete oversized steps filled up the gallery space, in lieu of a ghostly stadium.
Sanam Khatibi’s Morbid Eroticism
Sanam Khatibi. Photo: Artist’s own.
More sophisticated, yet somewhat equally raw, is Sanam Khatibi’s “Rivers In Your Mouth” at Rodolphe Janssen. In her paintings, lascivious nudes pose nonchalantly in nature, referencing classical paintings or even the foliage of Henri Rousseau. But these are not your average nudes. Iranian ceramics pop up throughout (the artist’s mum collects them), as do flesh-tearing hunting dogs. Morbidly romantic, and even erotic, Khatibi’s canvases—and notably a delicious tapestry—find a nice equilibrium between the exquisite perversity of her subjects and the naïveté of her strokes.
Embracing The Inner Flâneur at Yoann Van Parys
At LMNO, Yoann Van Parys used photography and objects as concrete marks across the gallery space and walls. Mainly of blue overtones, the hang relates to looking up on the city, like a flâneur, and that sense of contemplative poetry that sometimes is squeezed out from urban alienation. Observing Van Parys’s elaborate collages made pf paper, photography, and materials, carefully arranged together as if industrial floral compositions, is similar—except in plain light—to deciphering contours in the dark, and just as rewarding.
Booze and Temporal Reflection At Strookoffer
For drinks, there was the Strookoffer. Presented by Etablissement d’en face, Strookoffer is a recreation of Loos American Bar, a classic watering hole from 1950s Vienna. Artists Christoph Meier, Ute Müller, Robert Schwarz, and Lukas Stopczynski are the artists behind the recreation of the classic bar design by Adolf Loos. The four artists / architects / bar tenders reflect on links between time and dimensions (the length of the bar size compared to the original, the stretching of your experience in time), and on the creativity that emerges from making things together. The group have also insightfully pointed out “the history of art has a lot of bars” — we’ll drink to that!
Swapping the White Cube For the Yellowing Attic
Who would think of exhibiting in an attic surrounded by flowery wallpaper and yellowing trims? Gallerist Sebastien Ricou, apparently. Leaving the white cube of his previous gallery, Ricou said he wanted to physically engage his shows with realistic environments. François Patoue (whose large scale abstract colourful canvases “Hors Saison” were on show) explained the move in three simple words: “it makes sense”. “I paint on the floor, in fact my paintings are the size of my mattress,” he laughed, hinting at the additional physical confrontation the act of painting activates.
Indeed, Brussels Gallery Weekend proved to be a treat as intoxicating and variegated as Belgian beers. Cheers to that.