The work of Lutz Bacher isn’t interested in creating clarity. Although the artist’s decades-long practice used found images, and figures in American history who were both iconic and infamous, it seems that she was never interested in making these people – or the spaces in culture and a national psyche that they might occupy – transparent or easy to understand. Bacher herself worked under a pseudonym, and her likeness appears only once in the career-spanning retrospective ‘Burning the Days’ at Wiels in Brussels – in a photo series that seems to wink and satirise the image of the artist in a studio.

'It’s important to state that we didn’t want to solve who Lutz Bacher was,' the curator Helena Kritis reveals, wanting instead to focus on the idea of instability. The identity and role of the artist is inherently unstable in Bacher’s practice; from her relative invisibility across decades of the work, to the way that the idea of a sense of self can become malleable in the face of this art, and its deliberate overabundance of images.

‘Burning the Days’ opens with a piece that thrives in this unstable place. The Lee Harvey Oswald Interview (1976-78) is presented, on the surface, as an interview with the assassin who shot JFK. But in reality, this is a performance; Bacher herself takes on the role of both interviewer and subject, assassin and archivist. Bacher’s art comes to life in these uncertain spaces in between, where a viewer is forced into a double-take looking at the work. In one of the fragments of text that make up the ‘interview’ (collaged on top of images of Oswald himself, manipulated and distorted by the artist), Bacher-as-Oswald says: 'It should be that more pictures should tell you more, but what happens is that they tell you less and less.'

By drawing on the endless stream of images that make up the language of pop culture – Bacher’s work involves everything from Troll dolls and archival images of celebrities, to toy tanks and cardboard cut-outs of Elvis Presley – she is constantly asking about not just the role that these objects play, but how a viewer might interpret them. For Kritis, Bacher’s work 'refused [the] notion of a clean distinction' between critiquing the imagery and institutions of American culture, and being complicit in the way they can be deployed.

As Kritis puts it: 'She allowed the images to be seductive and visible, but then she also distorted them and exposed how they produced desire, paranoia, conspiracy or myth.' Nowhere is this clearer than in the pairing of two pieces of Bacher’s work on the exhibition’s second floor – what Kritis calls ‘constellations’ – one of which is the wire skeleton of a buffalo, synthetic flesh hanging off of it, materiality of its construction exposed.

On the wall next to it is Men at War (1975), a series of images of American soldiers relaxing on a beach. Read from left to right, Bacher’s treatment of the images – zoomed and cropped, creating a very specific, narrow field of vision – moves further out until it reveals a soldier with a swastika tattooed across his chest. These moments of shock and uncertainty, as if one had been jolted out of reverie, occur throughout the exhibition, in ways that ask questions around complicity and the insidious nature of engaging with culture, and the politics surrounding it, too passively.

There are times where this is done for sly, comic effect; a riff on the pin-ups illustrated by Antonio Vargas for Esquire and Playboy, which Bacher presents alongside knowing, political aphorisms and jokes in cursive text; Playboys (Inflation) from 1993 reads 'of course, there are certain kinds of inflation that I don’t mind at all'. Kritis admits that viewing these images might make someone a little 'uncomfortable', now, still stressing the idea that what Bacher did with the series was take 'this intimate image and make it public; [she] showed the blatant sexism, and made us complicit in watching it together'.

While ‘Burning the Days’ isn’t a chronological retrospective of Bacher’s life and work, it does seem to have an arc that ties it all together. Ascending each of the three floors (and roof terrace) at Wiels where the exhibition is on show, a movement away from the embodied and visual world of mass culture turns into something more abstract and spiritual. One of the final works on the exhibition’s second floor is The Road (2007), a series of 13 images that follow the curve of a road, stopping before the corner is turned.

There’s a movement away from the id, the traceable understanding of culture and its imprints (one striking moment, that illustrates how Bacher’s work interacts with the specificity of where it is exhibited is a toy tank on the wall, tread marks behind it, discolouring the white museum surface), and towards unanswerable question of exactly what it is that lies just out of our reach. On the third floor of the space, the installation Black Beauty (2012-13) – a surface of black silica made to approximate the surface of the moon, with footprints traceable through the room – is paired with Blue Moon (1996), a multi-channel video of the moon, solitary in the sky, and the voices of Bacher and her husband, the astrophysicist Donald C Backer, heard slightly muffled, as if coming from another room.

Bacher’s work, no matter what form it takes, is always fascinated by the power in discovered, repurposed, discarded material. And yet, this seems to fall away at the exhibition’s end, leaving behind a married couple, a far-off celestial object, and the ability to trace the footsteps that led us here.

Kritis pushes up against the artistic tradition that Bacher is most often seen as being a part of: the readymade, found objects repurposed for a new context. Chess (2012), features a replication of one of Marcel Duchamp’s most famous readymade images: a tricycle, turned upside down. Bacher places this between giant chess pieces, and a cardboard cutout of Elvis, as a looping, distorted version of one of his songs plays in the background.

Kritis instead argues for Bacher’s practice as one 'attracted to things carrying a past already charged with social and emotional traces'. ‘Burning the Days’ approaches this in a way that seems like a mirror of the artist’s own approach to making work: by eschewing linearity and easy answers, and instead making tense, sometimes unsettling connections that flicker with the possibility of a new world.

‘Burning The Days’, developed in collaboration with Astrup Fearnley Museet, is on until 9 August at wiels.org

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

In Brussels, designer Victoria-Maria Geyer has transformed a historic maison de maître – the term for those grand, light-filled townhouses once built for the city’s elite – into something truly special. Situated near a lake in the heart of the city, the residence has evolved into an utterly elegant family home, its vision shaped by time, craftsmanship and a sense of cultural storytelling.

The project, which unfolded over five years, began when the client, a family of five, sought a home that would balance refinement with comfort. In response, Geyer conceived interiors that she describes as ‘colonial with a twist’. Unfolding in deep rust and golden yellow, the space thoughtfully weaves references to travel and artisanal craft. Egyptian wallpaper in the cloakroom, scarab motifs running along the staircase and Moroccan ottomans sit alongside Venetian canopy beds, Etro textiles and rattan kitchen detailing – cosmopolitan influences brought together with an intimate, lived-in ease.

The living room establishes the home’s aesthetic language through a carefully judged blend of vintage and contemporary pieces. Pierre Frey fabrics, a sculptural bronze work by Chidy Wayne, and a custom ‘Josephine’ coffee table from Geyer’s own ‘Heimat’ collection coexist with gold-leaf detailing on the mouldings and a curated selection of flea-market finds.

One of the most striking rooms is the billiard room, where Geyer embraces the bold with a rainbow-striped Kilim wallpaper – an unexpected yet harmonious counterpoint to the midcentury furnishings. A preserved fireplace anchors the room in its architectural past, echoing the wider restoration of original features throughout the house, including the staircase and stained-glass windows.

Materiality plays a central role in building the home’s layered atmosphere. In the dining room, Corian and oak surfaces are paired with straw wall coverings by Philip Jeffries. In the adjoining bar, a bespoke brass and walnut bar topped with onyx is complemented by raffia lighting from Natalia Brilli and Murano glassware, reinforcing the home’s global theme.

Upstairs, the master bedroom feels softer more serene. Anchored by a Venetian-inspired canopy bed, the space is defined by warm hues and richly textured fabrics. In the en suite bathroom, travertine walls and terrazzo flooring establish a spa-like calm, enhanced by sculptural ceramics.

Geyer’s approach to this home achieves something rarely achieved in interior design: it feels collected over time. Each room is composed with sensitivity, contrast and continuity, allowing diverse influences to come together in a truly cohesive way.

Recreate the mood

A fitting finale

Bill Prince, editor-in-chief

A rare standing ovation greeted the conclusion of Véronique Nichanian’s autumn-winter 2026/27 menswear show at Hermès last weekend – a fitting tribute to her 38 years leading the house’s men’s offer. The moment was capped by a showreel of her work over the years and a performance by one of her favourite artists, Paul Weller. It was a privilege to be present and witness the passing of the baton to Grace Wales Bonner, who shows next year. In the meantime, we bathed in a final walk defined, as ever, by the designer’s precision and elegance – a tutorial in contemporary tailoring that came with more than a flash of Véronique’s rock ’n’ roll spirit, with its inclusion of blush shearlings and high-shine crocodile suiting.

Modernism on the move

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

This week involved a bit of travel at the architecture desk. First, I visited Villa Beer, the newly reopened Viennese modernist classic by Joseph Frank and Oskar Wlach. What a treat it was to explore this rare 20th-century gem (as well as pay a visit to Hermann Czech’s beautiful miniature icon, the Kleines Café in central Vienna, where I bumped into none other than Mr Czech himself).

On Wednesday, meanwhile, I hopped on a preview tour of the upcoming Kanal-Centre Pompidou in Brussels. The Belgian capital has seen nothing like it – until November 2026, that is – when this significant (40,000 sq m) cultural destination will open, complete with an architecture centre, art galleries, public plazas, hospitality offerings and a playground by Assemble. Set in a former Citroën factory and showroom from the early 20th century, the building has been reimagined by a trio of collaborators: EM2N, noAarchitecten and Sergison Bates architects.

The project is nothing if not ambitious, and its authors are passionate about becoming an active and inclusive presence in the city’s urban realm. 'We are creating a museum where the centre of gravity won’t be the exhibitions,' said its managing director, Yves Goldstein, at a press conference held within the structure’s advanced building site. 'It will be the public space. We want to create a public space.'

A blues-beating ritual

Tianna Williams, staff writer

After what seems to be the longest January in history, I am grateful that we are inching closer to spring. Though the cold, wet months are not for the faint of heart, I have recently been trying to shift my perspective and embrace 'the cosy'. This includes journaling, sipping warm drinks and eating pastries in weather that can only be described as grim.

Central to this is a good candle (I have been thoroughly enjoying Ashley & Co’s Tui & Kahili scented candle, as well as their Coffee Date lip balm), your favourite mug (I love Nkuku), and blank pages on which to jot down your thoughts.

A world of craft

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

A trip to Paris Design Week a couple of weeks ago yielded many beautiful destinations, but one stop has lingered: Astier de Villatte. Located on the Rue Saint-Honoré, just behind the Jardin des Tuileries, the boutique is an enchanting space devoted to ceramics, perfume and books. Astier de Villatte feels suspended in time, its old-world interior a higgledy-piggledy assemblage of objects that wouldn’t feel out of place on Diagon Alley.

The brand’s world also encompasses a letterpress printing atelier in l’Haÿ-les-Roses – one of the last in the world still printing books using lead – a publishing house and a perfume workshop. Founders Benoît Astier de Villatte and Ivan Pericoli have built its reputation almost entirely through word of mouth – relying on people who, like me, are so charmed by this shrine to craft and tradition that they can’t help but pass the story on.

A Portobello pit stop

Jamilah Rose-Roberts, social media editor

Last week, while wandering through Portobello in search of secondhand books and old cameras, the need to eat crept in slowly. Portobello has a way of doing that through all the walking and browsing. What I was craving was breakfast that felt solid and well made – somewhere I could sit, eat properly and carry on with the day.

Almost by accident, I stumbled upon Cleanse Juice Bar and Kitchen, a health café tucked neatly on the vibrant street, offering everything I was craving. The space is light-filled and unfussy, and the food leans into organic, fresh, carefully prepared ingredients.

Breakfast here feels super restorative. Vibrant bowls layered with seasonal fruit, grains and seeds arrive looking alive, with flavours that are clean and well balanced. The juices taste purposeful rather than sweetened – each one clearly built with care for the body. There is a sense that ingredients matter, that provenance is part of the pleasure. I recommend their Moroccan tea, which is delicious.

In a neighbourhood overflowing with choice, Cleanse Juice Bar and Kitchen feels dependable and consistent. If you are nearby and want a good breakfast, coffee, or buildable bowl, stop in – it is well worth it.

The Brussels Standard is the latest addition to the portfolio of the gastronomy- and design-focused brand, and it is its first launch since parent company Standard International was acquired by Hyatt in October 2024. Located in a renovated tower within Brussels’ lesser-known Northern Quarter, the hotel’s rooms start on the sixth floor, giving all 200 rooms, along with the rooftop restaurant and terrace, spectacular and previously unseen views of this underrated and eclectic European capital. The warm, inviting atmosphere and alluring design by prominent local talent Bernard Dubois create a refreshing change in what used to be an office-dominated area that emptied out in the evening.

Wallpaper* checks in at The Standard, Brussels

What’s on your doorstep?

Brussels’ central business district might not be a part of the town you have visited before. Built amid some controversy in the 1960s and 70s, the area was underutilised and emptied out at night. To reconnect it with the city and diversify its uses, it is now undergoing a major revitalisation project. It serves as an ideal base for exploring both the centre (reachable on foot) and the increasingly vibrant and creative Canal district nearby. A short walk north-west brings you to the sprawling turn-of-the-20th-century former industrial complex Tour & Taxis, now a cultural and exhibition venue with an architecturally striking food hall. To the south-east is the Botanique, a music venue set within the greenhouses of a former 19th-century botanical garden.

Who’s behind the design?

Designed by Bernard Dubois, who worked closely with the savvy in-house team at The Standard, the interiors are a heady blend of rigorous yet playful architectural and design details, along with bespoke, sophisticated furniture pieces (not to mention what must be thousands of metres of curtains in the bedrooms, suites, lobby, and restaurants). There’s a nod to early postmodern Belgian architect André Jacqmain in the soaring lobby, with its arches and playful symmetry, and inspiration from post-war Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck in the layout of the ‘1930s Miami’ rooftop restaurant, with its series of intimate spots created through stepped height changes, circular banquette seating, and salmon-hued see-through curtains.

‘I like to mix, juxtapose, transform, and distort historic references in order to give birth to something new and different,’ explains Dubois. The rooms are quieter (except for the splendid carpets, which reference the quirky seat fabrics of 1980s European cars), but they continue the game of blending proportions and shapes seen elsewhere. Think seductive milled wood finishes, thick, curvaceous, ocean-liner-style lacquered wood tables, and circular motifs – in the bed’s headboard, recessed timber seating areas, and the minibar.

The room to book

Any of the Deluxe Junior Suites (the rooms ending in 17) are worth booking. These corner suites offer expansive views over the tree-lined Avenue du Roi Albert II below and the city centre beyond, including the world-famous Grand Place. Their dreamy, cream-tiled bathrooms feature bathtubs and direct city views. These suites don’t come with TVs by default, but one can be brought to your room on request. The idea is that the city below becomes the ‘screen’ to watch, particularly at night, when the twinkling lights and traffic take on a mesmerising quality.

For a less indulgent stay, try the Standard King. In this and other smaller room types, the curtains running along the wall closest to the window create the clever illusion of a corner room (often, the TV is tucked behind this curtain). A thoughtful touch includes the discreet all-in-one plug and USB-C bedside sockets, as well as the analogue (yet dimmable) white BTicino light switches.

Where to switch off?

Next door to the rooftop terrace is a lush garden, shared with the offices in the building but spacious enough to offer a complete escape from work, people, and the world. The ground-floor ‘greenhouse’ serves partly as an outdoor spill-out terrace for the Double Standard restaurant and partly as a public park during the day, complete with intimate corners and benches. Alternatively, head to the ground-floor bar, which features several cosy nooks. There’s even a table hidden behind the bar, completely out of sight from the rest of the hotel, making it perfect for a rendezvous.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

The food and drink offering is both cosmopolitan and cleverly rooted in local inspiration. California transplant and long-time Belgium resident Alex Joseph, of Michelin-starred Rouge Tomate fame, is the culinary mind behind it all. At the ground-floor Double Standard brasserie-style restaurant, expect a medley of US comfort food and Belgian classics: think Caesar salad and pastrami melt alongside prawn croquettes and mussels with frites.

On the 29th floor, Lila29 celebrates Iberian cuisine in all its forms – grilled, baked, and fried. Try the red mullet with polenta or the grilled octopus with ink aioli. But be sure to leave room for the vegetarian fideuà con socarrat (a paella-style dish made with vermicelli noodles instead of rice, cooked until the bottom turns perfectly crispy). It’s a delightful surprise. Drinks often nod to local flavours or the restaurant’s theme.

The verdict

Despite its very recent opening (which means staffing and menus are still being fine-tuned), The Standard, Brussels is an assured project that exudes energy, a distinctly Belgian sense of approachability, and an appealing dose of levity. The staff are consummately attentive and good-humoured, and the design is effortlessly alluring. There’s a pleasant intergenerational and mixed atmosphere too. Office workers popping in for lunch at the rooftop restaurant or locals trying out the ground-floor brasserie or bar rub shoulders with international guests visiting for both work and leisure. Whether you’re here for a breakfast meeting or a few days’ stay, you’re likely to leave with a smile on your face.

The Standard, Brussels is located at Bd Roi Albert II 30, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.

As part of a series of upgrades to its Premier offering – which saw the reinvention of the onboard culinary offering in October 2024 – Eurostar has now unveiled the redesign of its branded lounges in Brussels and Paris, which are available for Eurostar Premier passengers travelling on continental routes, as well as Carte Blanche and Carte Étoile loyalty members.

Eurostar revamps its Premier lounges in Paris and Brussels

Courtesy of London-based Chris Bagot Architects, the two revamped rooms draw inspiration from the atmosphere of European cafés and bars but cater to the comforts of contemporary travellers seeking an elevated pre-departure experience. ‘The brief was to create consistency across both spaces while simultaneously reflecting the place where they are and the new brand values,’ Chris Bagot tells Wallpaper*.

The updated lounges arrive with a dedicated semi-circular cocktail bar clad in European oak and featuring crimson red ‘Kashmir’ stools designed by Simon James for Resident. The bar is open from 3 pm until closing time on weekdays, and passengers can request mixologist-made cocktails to enjoy with the complimentary snacks and magazines on offer.

In Paris, a monochromatic patterned Mutina-tiled floor and terracotta wall tiles by Maora Ceramica define a warm and comfortable atmosphere. Contemporary furnishing choices are sleek and thoughtful, such as rustic Thonet’s ‘209P’ café chairs and Vitra's beige ‘Fauteuil Direction’ armchairs by Jean Prouvé. ‘A classic Swiss-French design, a Nemo 'Lampe de Marseille', originally designed by Le Corbusier for his Unité d’Habitation project, illuminates the central food counter,’ notes Bagot.

Belgian-made pieces such as a Muller Van Severen hanging lamp and a solid oak table by Heerenhuis add sophistication to the Brussels location. Towards the rear of the lounge, a corner ‘Bob’ sofa, by Thomas Bernstrand and Stefan Borselius for Blå Station, upholstered with verdant Dedar velvet, defines an intimate area that can be screened off with a voile curtain for greater privacy. Nearby, an enclosed phone booth allows personal calls.

The new Eurostar Premier lounges are located at 22 rue de Dunkerque in Paris and Rue de l’Instruction 158-160 in Brussels

When Michèle Bogaert, founder of multi-brand fashion boutique Icon in Brussels, tapped interior designer Merijn Degraeve to collaborate on her new home, there was only one thing she considered non-negotiable. In the L-shaped apartment, housed in an early-1950s building in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, a municipality in the green belt surrounding the Belgian capital, the fashion entrepreneur wanted no trace of fashion. She envisioned her home as an escape from work.

Instead, the apartment, named Residence Michelle, was to become a personality-infused amalgamation of the furniture and art collections that Bogaert shares with her partner Frederik, and their blended family’s needs and tastes, infused with Degraeve’s knack for combining modernist precision with eclecticism. ‘We both love a layered design that builds over time,’ he says. ‘It was definitely a joint effort.’

Putting their minds together led to an integration of ideas. Degraeve says that they never said a ‘hard no’ to each other, and the contrasting materials and objects in the home reflect that balancing act. Campanelli Rosso marble clads the bathroom. A similar earthen red hue of lime lines the kitchen, where Bogaert opted for an enclosed, galley-style space where she can retreat with her coffee and look out over the city. The stainless-steel kitchen module from Italian brand Abimis, customised with white lacquered fronts, shares the space with a white oak cabinet, harmonising natural and industrial materials.

In the living and dining areas, herringbone wood floors form the foundation of spaces punctuated with extroverted pieces of Italian design. Two ‘Quaderna’ tables by Superstudio for Zanotta become one large family dining table – the first sparking a search for a second original model after an alternative proved to be a different height. An ‘Atollo’ lamp by Vico Magistretti and a ‘Utrecht’ chair by Gerrit Rietveld for Cassina form a dialogue with a gold-tone, Memphis-inspired shelving system. Nearby, a figurative wall-scale painting by Sanam Khatibi brings in colour and narrative detail, as does a small-scale 17th-century Pieter Van Lint artwork.

The family doesn’t really watch TV, they say, preferring to read and listen to records in a living room geared toward connection. In that spirit, conversation-starting art pieces dot the apartment, such as a Tony Matelli painted bronze masquerading as a sapling in the hallway, or a Lucas Blalock photograph of canned sausages.

The slower living that Bogaert craved – disconnected from fashion’s relentless pace – was honoured by Degraeve’s design interventions. The hall’s rounded corners signal a deliberate softening and a seamless flow into the intimate primary bedroom, which was transformed from a narrow, practical space into a more indulgent footprint. One of the biggest changes that Degreave made to the original layout was to open the bathroom to that bedroom and integrate a walk-in closet for a ‘hotel suite feeling’. The space curves gently along a rounded wall, anchored by a vertical ‘Tekiò’ lamp from Santa & Cole, and includes a make-up nook framed by upholstered cabinetry panels.

When Bogaert wants to retreat at home, away from work’s busy calendar, she needs no better invitation to go inside.

The Inside Story is Wallpaper’s regular interior design series. For more, explore the modern Indian aesthetic of Coimbatore home, or an artist’s Manhattan apartment

Brussels doesn’t leave the best first impression. The Belgian capital is home to major institutions like the E.U. Commision, Parliament and NATO but also struggles with fractured governance, acute social inequality and a run-down physical appearance (the centre of town in particular).

Straddling the linguistic boundary between Romantic and Germanic Europe – the increasingly autonomous regions of Dutch-speaking Flanders to the north and French-speaking Wallonia to the south –Brussels has a disjointed identity, but that might be a good thing.

Peeling back the layers of a city undergoing yet another chaotic phase of urban renewal – past attempts of which notoriously destroyed a lot of its historic charm in favour of modernisation – one uncovers a thriving creative scene extending from fine art, architecture, design, cuisine and where these domains intersect. Fashion is more of Antwerp's thing, but its influence can be felt here as well to a certain extent.

International hospitality and cultural forces hedge their bets on Brussels

Surprisingly, there's a high concentration of Michelin-star restaurants in Brussels. The latest of which is Le Petit Bon Bon, a reimagined Belgian brasserie situated within the recently reopened Belle Epoque-era Grand Hotel Astoria, expertly restored by Francis Metzger for Corinthia Hotels. This boîte was deftly outfitted by Antwerp-based firm WeWantMore with the aim of elevating the traditional typology in both material and form, echoing the approach chef Christophe Hardiquest took in curating a menu of reformulated local classics.

Other premium hotel chains like The Hoxton and The Standard have also gotten in on the game recently, revamping properties in what has long been viewed as the dingy Northern Quarter. Here as well, Parisian art museum Centre Pompidou is set to open its Kanal outpost in a repurposed Citroën facility.

Across the adjoining canal, Tour & Taxis has emerged as a bustling mixed use complex. Its main post-industrial halls play host to internationally renowned fairs like Art Brussels and BRAFA. The innovative all-timber construction Gare Maritime within the complex is flourishing as a tech incubator.

Located in the slightly more upmarket Dansaert pocket of downtown, MAD Brussels is a centralising platform bringing together the city and country’s diverse creative communities with rotating exhibitions and residency programs while serving as a vital resource for those artists and designers just getting started.

Favourable conditions for independent creatives and collectives

Many of the talents based here are having an outsized impact on the rest of the global art and design industries. What connects them is a sense of irreverence and experimentation. They’ve all set up shop and home in Brussels because of its affordability but also its grittiness. The city presents itself as a blank canvas for them to speculatively revisit time and time again. In many ways, Armenian architect Noro Khachatryan distills this backdrop in his hyper-minimalist and architectonic furnishings.

Unsurprisingly, rent and the outright cost of real estate is much lower than in nearby Amsterdam, Paris or London – major metropolises easily accessed thanks to robust rail links. This makes operating large studios much easier. Khachatryan maintains a sizable space in the burgeoning, once perceivably dangerous, Molenbeek neighborhood.

Also in the area, Asifose is a new hub comprising large exhibition and studio spaces intertwined and forged out of derelict buildings. This collaborative entity was established, in part, by the collective Espace Aygo, which embodies the ad-hoc, 'anti-design' mindset popular at the moment. Having spearheaded this movement in many respects, Brussels-based Arnaud Eubelen is known for configuring dynamic furnishings out of 'raw' industrial materials sourced from construction sites. Headed up by renowned industrial designer Lionel Jadot, Zaventem Atelier is yet another collective platform situated in a sprawling former factory along the outskirts of town. The organisation fosters interdisciplinary exchange amongst its varied members: sculptors, furniture designers and scenographers.

While the pace of life in Brussels is slower, its artistic output and spirit of future-forward thinking matches and even exceeds that of the boisterous megacities in its midst. This is especially true from an avant-garde standpoint – a tradition deeply rooted in this identity-less city, one unconstrained by the easily co-opted historical and homogenised tropes that often pigeon-hole specific places. It’s no surprise that Brussels has long been a bastion of surrealism and alternative forms of expression.

For those designers that have moved here in the past few decades, the influence of the world-renowned Design Academy Eindhoven – just an hour and a half’s drive away – is also palpable. The school's authoritative culture of material exploration and conceptual ideation permeates many of these practices. Graduates like Maarten de Ceulaer have long been fixtures of the city's ever-emerging scene. Recently debuting the ethereal and format-defying Mirror at Dusk collection at New York’s Emma Scully Gallery, Nel Verbeke has forged a research-based and zeitgeist responsive methodology all her own. Dutch designer Linde Freya Tangelder – the force behind wildly successful studio Destroyers / Builders – moved her studio to a modernist home within Brussels’s northern suburbs in 2023.

Emerging galleries and fairs with an interdisciplinary mindset

There’s also a booming, if somewhat concealed, art market here. Among private collectors – including French elites that have relocated to posh neighbourhoods like Uccle and Ixelles for favourable wealth tax policies – are a slew of recently established private and public-facing galleries, located in well-preserved Art Nouveau townhouses and Art Deco mansions.

Amongst those specialised in collectible design are Spazio Nobile and MANIERA. While the former considers the historic definition of the applied arts as a more unifying categorisation of what's being put out into the world today, the latter commissions architects to develop visually and formally captivating furnishings. With a broad roster of notable talents between them, both look to challenge disciplinary conventions. Emphasising the ever-blurring distinctions between design and art even further are the Boghossian Foundation Villa Empain – also situated in a grand historic home – and new venture Darwin 15.

Objects with Narrative is a recent addition to Brussels's raft of distinct design galleries. Located in an ornate 'baroque-style ballroom' along the chic Sablon square and massive loft levels above, this platform looks to support a wide range of contemporary talents pushing material forward and seeking to imbue their works with succinct storylines.

Anchoring all of this is the annual Collectible fair, held this year from 13 to 16 March. Bringing together an international roster of maverick galleries, edgy firms, and innovative independent practitioners, the fair prides itself on presenting only 21st-century design. Like Brussels itself, it isn’t mired in history – even if history is present – but instead spotlights those talents endeavouring to shape the future.

Highlights this year included Onlyonly Studio’s Daydreamer chaise lounge produced in natural latex and stainless steel. Antwerp-based fibre artist Nathalie Van der Massen presented a number of woven wall pieces and foldable room dividers with curator Stéphanie Fredrickx, hinting at the industry’s growing desire to reassess this age-old medium.

Geneva-based gallery Domum presented new pieces by Brazilian duo Palma, most notable of which was the egg shell in-layed Gambito Chair. As it has been for a few years now, pared back mono-material metal furnishings could also be found across the showcase. Within the entryway, French interior designer and scenographer Pauline Leprince created a perceptively prismatic installation out of upcycled denim procured from Belgian fashion house Bellerose and anchored by industrial-grade metal structures.

Welcoming over 20,000 visitors for its eighth edition, Collective fair has become an important sales point for local talents, those operating nearby and based around the world. Brussels’s centrality in Europe makes it an ideal place to mount such an event – but it's the city's openness to the new, the raw, and the speculative that truly sets the stage.

For curator Joël Riff, contemporary art is a celebration of diverse talent, a philosophy he indulges in his work for La Verrière gallery in Brussels. Working with the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Riff invites artists from an eclectic collection of mediums, in visual, decorative and applied arts, to present their works for the first time in Belgium.

‘My job as a curator is to show, to seek out the essence of a work to its fullest,’ says Riff, who, for his latest exhibition, ‘Spektrum’, has enjoyed working with French-born, Berlin-based artist Emmanuelle Castellan. ‘When you enter the space, you can feel the playfulness that Emmanuelle Castellan and the [other featured] artists allowed us – there is so much experimentation.’

Emmanuelle Castellan in ‘Spektrum’ at La Verrière

Castellan’s colourful work fills both the walls and the floors of the gallery. Cast in sweet sorbet shades, the pastel hues belie a depth and textural play. In some pieces, the work has been slashed, a gaping line of paint or negative space literally opening up the painting to a new, sharper interpretation.

‘The way these cuts are made, and the way the brush goes over so you're always aware that it's the brush of the painting – it's not hidden behind the base – it is very sophisticated,’ Riff adds.

The works take over the gallery space: refusing to stay confined in the frames, they leak over the walls and bleed onto the floor in a merging of shadows, lines, colours and dimensions.

The artists Riff has selected to show alongside Castellan – Norbert Schwontkowski, Walter Swennen, Johannes Nagel, Dagobert Peche and Muriel Pic – build on both this tangible materiality and a nod to their shared Germanic roots.

‘Spektrum’, with Emmanuelle Castellan, is at La Verrière gallery with Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, in Brussels until 27 July 2024

fondationdentreprisehermes.org

For American artist Joan Semmel, the body is a lens through which to dissect the cult of youth. Using her own body as a reference – although these works aren’t self-portraits – Semmel considers the representation of women through an unflinching examination of the natural ageing process. 

Joan Semmel, ‘An Other View’ at Xavier Hufkens

At her first exhibition with Xavier Hufkens in Belgium, Semmel juxtaposes the tracing of this passage of time with an exploration of political feminist issues. In eight oil paintings and two works on paper, created between 1971 and 2018, Semmel questions the accepted nuances of female beauty, beginning with her early works that sought to dismiss sexual repression for women by depicting intimacy from and for a woman’s gaze.

Through a muted colour palette and with a nod to her abstract expressionist roots, Semmel considers the body as she sees it, eschewing the male gaze altogether. In Weathered (2018), which shows the female body from the viewpoint of the female, the eyes on the body are the artist’s alone. 

Elsewhere, it is props that distort the male gaze. In Disappearing (2006), we are already removed from the body, represented only through a photograph, its opaqueness carefully replicated. The mirrors and cameras of Baroque (2002) force the viewer into the frame, questioning their own motives in the reflection. 

‘Reimagining the nude without objectifying the person, using my own body, made it clear that the artist was female and undercut the stereotypes of the male artist and the female muse,’ says Semmel. ‘I wanted to subvert that tradition from within.’

Joan Semmel, ‘An Other View’, is on until 15 June 2024 at Xavier Hufkens, Van Eyck, Brussels, Belgium

xavierhufkens.com

‘Heaven ‘N‘ Earth’, Sayre Gomez’s latest exhibition at Xavier Hufkens, begins with the former. Under the celestial glow of the gallery’s top-floor skylight, a meticulously crafted model of a ramshackle two-storey clapboard house occupies the floor’s centre, surrounded on four walls by photorealistic paintings of perfect Californian sunsets.

Scale Replica of the Past, Present and Future (Peabody Werden House) is a recreation of a historic house built in the Boyle Heights neighbourhood of LA, shortly before the turn of the 20th century. When funds for its restoration dried up in 2016, the house was simply lifted off its foundations and moved across the street to make way for a new apartment block.

‘Heaven ’N’ Earth‘ by Sayre Gomez at Xavier Hufkens

As an accidental monument to LA’s spiralling gentrification and displacement problems, the house symbolises Gomez’s key concern with mapping the physical and spiritual spaces left in the wake of the city’s rampant urban development. Fittingly, residents are absent from any of the work and yet traces of their unseen lives are everywhere.

On the floor below, Gomez’s simulacral renderings of glass emergency doors evoke the eeriness of a decrepit strip mall. Gomez infuses the surface of each painting with tactile signs of wear and ageing, further evidence of a neglected world and the ephemera of commerce that survives it.

Gomez revels in this blurring of artifice and reality and in the home of Hollywood perhaps this should be expected. In addition to the trompe-l'œil of his glass doors, Gomez digitally manipulates other paintings by collaging photographs and adding airbrushed details to create symbolically resonant compositions.

Large-scale works like We Pay Cash and Progress Maker (both 2023) fuse a foreground of destruction and dinginess with the gleaming glass and steel backdrop of downtown LA’s skyline. In Progress Maker, the hulking form of a concrete paving machine recalls the tractors in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, steamrolling communities in the name of profit and fortifying the boundary between rich and poor. 

These contrasts between centre and periphery, wealth and poverty, reality and illusion, underpin the exhibition as a whole, offering a poignant reflection on a city where homelessness has grown by around 80 per cent since 2015. Nowhere does this feel more stark than in the gallery’s basement, where the lightwell glass has been tinted orange to infuse the space with an infernal incandescence.

Adding to the sense of catastrophe are two paintings of shopping trolleys, somewhat of a recurring motif for the artist and a ubiquitous sign of LA’s nomadic homeless. Here Gomez presents them on fire, and in direct dialogue with a sculpture of a blackened and melted electric car charger. Down in the basement these powerful portents of climate change and petrochemical nihilism are the proverbial Earth to the upper floor’s heaven. The reality feels much closer to hell.

Sayre Gomez, ’Heaven ‘N‘ Earth’, is on display at Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium, until 2 March 2024 xavierhufkens.com

For a snapshot of Belgian design at its best, those in Brussels would do well to stop by Mix Hotel a new ‘hospitality hub’ in the south side of the city. Here, Belgian designer Lionel Jadot has transformed a functionalist office building into a destination, complete with a hotel, three restaurants, co-working space and a gym – all kitted out with bespoke design.

Lionel Jadot on designing Mix Hotel: ‘I work like a film director’

Adamant that Mix would not feature catalogue-bought pieces or cookie-cutter styles, Jadot’s mission was to create everything from scratch, from curtains and door handles to lighting and furniture. His first stop was Zaventem Ateliers, the modern-day crafts guild that he founded in 2018, on the outskirts of Brussels. He invited all 24 Zaventem makers to design a piece of their choice for Mix.

‘I work like a film director,’ he says (it’s true; he has made films in the past). ‘I cast my designers like actors, and they interpret my words as they want.’ It’s also true that the imposing cross-shaped building, created in the 1960s by architects René Stapels and Pierre Dufau, is not short of drama. Jadot took its copper-clad auditorium and sweeping, circular staircase as inspiration, along with ‘the shapes, the concrete, the metal, the wood to create a language that informed all the interior design’.

Beyond Zaventem, Jadot scouted out a further 26 artisans to collaborate on Mix. A prerequisite was that they were Belgian, had their own workshops and shared Jadot’s ethos of working with recycled elements and repurposed materials. As a sixth-generation member of furniture-making family, Jadot spent his childhood in his father’s workshop before taking over the business aged 19. For more than 20 years, he has created bespoke interiors for private clients and hospitality projects, from Café Flora and Wolf Food Market (both in Brussels) to the new Jam Hotel in Lisbon.

A locally made hotel

In a bid to eliminate waste and generate a circular economy, many renovation leftovers have been reused in Mix. Take the recycled plastic skirting by Bel Abatros, all 6km of it, or the screens in the co-working spaces by Emma Cogné (which can be rented by the hour) made from plastic cable tubing. As well as using local materials and makers, Jadot also adopted a fairer fee structure, eliminating the middle man (himself) so that each designer invoiced the hotel owner directly. Most of Zaventem Atelier’s artisans are small-scale, with a maximum of three people, and for the 25,000 sq m Mix, they had to upscale massively.

Another fitting example of this approach is French artist Roxane Lahidji (based at Zaventem Ateliers), whose brief was to create more than 200 lamps for the bedrooms and lobby, which she made from a salt composite harvested from the Rhone delta. ‘Mix pushed her and her process further. She had to hire more staff and organise workshops to get to this level of production,’ says Jadot, clearly pleased with the results of the challenges he set her.

He adds: ‘Normally with a project of this size, the designer orders maybe 1,000 chairs from China because they are cheap. The chairs arrive by boat, which takes months. At Mix, the idea was to create a locally made collection. Everything is listed, everything is signed, so my client has a huge selection of collectible design.’ Diners, gym members and hotel guests who fall in love with pieces (and who can resist the chairs in the Fox food hall by Custom Cut or the lights by Studio Elementaires?) can commission them, and should Mix’s owners ever want to redesign the space in the future, they can auction everything off and start again.

The scale of Mix and the breadth of original design within it is mind-boggling, and that Jadot could fulfil such a challenging brief in just two and a half years is a testament to both his talents and his strong connections to the Belgian design scene. ‘Co-ordinating 50 designers, keeping my client’s trust because there were no visuals, or catalogues to look at, yeah it was a bit crazy,’ he laughs. ‘But everybody worked so well together and understood the power of the project. We were a great cast.’

Book now

mixbrussels.com

An international platform for collectible design, Collectible Brussels is now in its sixth edition, offering collectors a curated selection of unique and limited-edition pieces from galleries and emerging designers. 

Just as in previous editions, fair founders Clélie Debehault and Liv Vaisberg assembled a team of professionals starting with a selection committee that includes Lilli Hollein, director of MAK Vienna; architect Glenn Sestig; and Paul Thompson, vice-chancellor of the Royal College of Art. But they also collaborated with designer Leo Orta, who led the fair’s Curated section, and Brussels collector and curator Jean-François Declerq, whose fair section Dialogue explores historical designs in relation to contemporary creation. Special attention is given to emerging talent through New Garde, a new element of the fair that, as Vaisberg puts it, aims at ‘renewing the collectible design scene’. 

Here’s our pick of the fair, on at Tour & Taxis’ Sheds until 12 March 2023.

COLLECTIBLE 2023: HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BRUSSELS DESIGN FAIR

Tableau: You Can Be Anything

'Barbie has, in our opinion, gone through a revolution in past decades,' says Tableau founder Julius Værnes Iversen. The Copenhagen design studio presents an installation inspired by the Barbie Dreamhouse, showcasing new pieces in a bubblegum-pink setting. Among the colourful designs are folded glass side tables by Lumière Bricoleur, a mirror printed with flowers by Chris Calmer and a metal bench by Pettersen & Hein. 'Barbie has become more inclusive regarding dolls' body shape, gender roles, sexuality, ethnicity and much more. We wanted to emphasise that there are a lot of places in the world where people are not accepted for simply their being. Therefore we created a living room inspired by Barbie, since the company in our opinion has gone through a revolution in the past decade.'

tableau-cph.com

Maarten De Ceulaer: Stained Glass Lights

Maarten De Ceulaer presents his ongoing ‘Stained Glass’ series, from a collection of expressive lighting designs that explore a new approach to designing with colour and light. Mixing coloured glass with unexpected results, De Ceulaer sliced panels from a flat piece of glass to compose his cylindrical lighting designs. 'I wanted to create a lighting collection that is bursting with colour, lamps in which colour is used as a material,' says the designer. 

maartendeceulaer.com

Objects with Narrative: What’s for dinner

Inspired by an imaginary dining room experience, Swiss design gallery Objects with Narratives presents ‘What’s for dinner’, an immersive dining room experience featuring works by Jan Ernst, Lukas Cober, Laurids Gallée, Mircea Anghel and Faina, among others. 'The exhibition is not defined by a style, material or process but defined by a single dedicated room that brings people together and closest to these natural elements: the dining room,' reads a statement from the gallery. ‘This space acts as a podium where craftsmen from more than 15 different cultures around the world can express themselves. Each collected object, with a story of its own, comes together to join the narrative of a ritual we share universally. This is an invitation to reconnect through the materials and processes of a timeless design collection that takes us back to a place where we find comfort and [what] made us human after all.'

objectswithnarratives.com

Form Editions

Within the fair's Bespoke section (dedicated to innovative materials and artisanal techniques), Amsterdam's Form Editions (Amsterdam), led by design-duo Rive Roshan, showcases the desgners’ personal works as well as pieces from their design collective. The booth includes stools 3D-printed using Bavarian sand by Rive Roshan, as well as the duo's mirrors made with rippled glass, and furniture made of assembled stone and metal by Collin Velkoff.

formeditions.com

New Garde: emerging talent of collectible design

A generous section of the fair is dedicated to new galleries, design studios and collectives. Collectible's mission is to give these creatives a platform, showcasing their work prominently at the fair's entrance. Among the New Garde selection are Marseilles' Good Sessions, presenting 'Beautiful Garbage', comprising functional designs made with repurposed discarded materials; and NeeNee Collective, composed of Korean designers based in Eindhoven and Amsterdam; as well as Heim + Viladrich Office in collaboration with Laurids Gallée.

Collectible Design Fair is on until 12 March 2023

Tour & Taxis, Sheds
Avenue du Port
1000 Brussels 

collectible.design

A set of five Jorge Pardo ‘Brussels Lamps’ has been reissued by German publishing house Taschen. Cuban-American artist Pardo has been collaborating with Taschen for years, also creating colorful wall panels and lamps for the publisher’s Brussels store. 

The lamps (available individually or as a set) feature signature motifs from the artist's oeuvre. Made of layered, laser-cut, hand-painted PETG plastic discs, they offer a more compact interpretation of some of Pardo’s large-scale works. 

Jorge Pardo’s ‘Brussels Lamps’

The lamps’ discs are carefully shaped and stacked in ways that allow light to be spread in different directions. The composition is arranged around a simple bulb held by three steel rods.

Able to function as freestanding lamps or as pendant lamps, the designs appear like colourful sculptures when switched off, and come alive when light animates their forms. 

‘This latest collaboration [...] began with Pardo’s tried-and-tested creative process: he captures the notion on paper and only then starts to build the first prototype in his studio,' reads a statement from Taschen introducing the project. 'This prototype goes through as many evolutions and reinventions as it takes to produce one [iteration] that seizes his fascination.'

Described as ‘a serendipitous meeting of technology and creativity', the ‘Brussels Lamps’ collection is the latest non-book release by Taschen. Over the years it has also produced limited-edition prints by artists and photographers, three-dimensional cases for special-edition books, as well as accessories to accompany them, most notably, a now-sold-out marble sculpture and silk wrap for its Art Edition of the book, Ai Weiwei.

The Jorge Pardo Brussels Lamps are available now as a set of five, £22,500, or £5,000 each, editions of 100 per lamp and per set.

taschen.com

‘Are you from Wallpaper*?‘ cries a voice in motion, originating from a helmeted, high-vis-clad cyclist hurling down an industrial street in Islington on an early October morning. The voice belongs to a very lively Antony Gormley, one of the most recognisable, accoladed artists of a century. 

Gormley leads me, and the bicycle, through the studio gate, best described as a barricade, into the expansive forecourt of his purpose-built creation palace, designed by David Chipperfield in 2003. It’s formed of seven white pitched roofs, hugged on each side by galvanised steel staircases. It’s the sort of industrial-scale studio that caters for stratospheric-level thoughts, of which Gormley has many. 

Inside the double-height space are Gormley’s bodies, standing upright and protruding horizontally from walls, ghostly, fractured suggestions of figures, in lines, pixels, and knots and a sea of maquettes, including one for Alert, a recent (and somewhat divisive) sculpture for Imperial College London. 

I’m interviewing Gormley ahead of his show ‘Body Field’ at Xavier Hufkens’ new St-Georges space in Brussels. The gallery, a modernist monolith designed by Robbrecht & Daem architects, opened earlier this year. Gormley is impressed: ‘To see the equivalent of the Met Breuer suddenly inserted into this comfortable but quite self-satisfied range of 19th-century row-house designs is just so exciting.’

Gormley has been collaborating with Hufkens for 35 years and ‘Body Field’ marks his ninth show with the gallery. ‘I think we’re friends united in a common wish for art to be a present but lasting force in changing the world,’ he says of his gallerist. 

‘Body Field’, spanning four floors of the gallery, is organised into three zones: the mapping of urban context, the mapping of the interior network of bodily emotion, and the fusion of self and other. And there’s a lot to digest. 

The show places humanity in a ‘grid’ of rapid urbanisation, the equally as gridlike world of cyber communication, our ‘dangerous’ separation from the elemental, our ‘collective condition of narcissistic self-observation’, and poses a key question: ‘What is a human being now?’

‘We’ve never had tools of self-knowing at our disposal so immediately before, or tools of self-destruction so easily available. And we’re at more than a tipping point. We’re in a moment of utter crisis.’ 

The show begins with Run III, a sculpture Gormley describes as an ‘attempt at making a 3D drawing that describes the architecture that’s already there’. It comprises a 153m-long steel tube that ebbs and flows to depict the domestic heights of chairs, tables and windowsills, emphasising the infrastructure that would ordinarily live on the periphery of muscle memory. This is not simply sculptural, Gormley notes, but performative. ‘There is a sense that it’s articulating your movements through space. The body of the viewer is forced into a kind of choreography.’

Corner offers a change in tempo, and is the first of two concrete works that bookend the show. This ‘bunker for one’ features a gaping orifice leading to a void that would accommodate a body. Is this a womb or tomb? Or perhaps it’s a meditation on a bound body with a free mind, or even a reflection on an urbanised world rich in manmade infrastructure yet devoid of humanity. As expected, the answer is more loaded. ‘Vernadsky’s promise of the noosphere has been materialised in the world wide web,’ he says. ‘Our ability to know about things that we will never physically experience has never been equalled and is now universal. The zone of that freedom is all internal… all we need to do is close our eyes and we are in a space with no dimensions, that has no objects, and is totally extensive.’ 

When thinking about Antony Gormley’s best-known works – The Angel of the North, Event Horizon or Another Place – the overbearing sentiment is that of bodily solitude in environmental expanses. In a curious departure, ‘Body Field’ debuts Gormley’s Double Blockworks, the artist’s ‘repeated investigation into the relationship between mitosis and sexual congress or the confusion of the two’.

One could offer infinite interpretations for these intriguing duets: division of the self (the casts were based on scans of Gormley’s body clasping an existing singular blockwork); the increasingly polarised self, or extreme notions of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in global identity politics. Or maybe it’s more obvious and even less tangible: a story of love. ‘The idea of two bodies that are in a way unique, but similar, have a balanced relationship with each other, are proximate and therefore sharing the same air,’ says Gormley, who developed the idea during Covid-19 isolation. ‘The most successful work is where two bodies have found a way of occupying space together where you can’t quite tell which block belongs to which.’

Importantly, for these works, Gormley drew on Michelangelo’s ultimate unfinished masterpiece – the Rondanini Pietà (1552-64), which depicts the Virgin Mary cradling the flaccid body of the dead Christ. For Gormley, it is also a ‘picture of the artist in relation to the work’, of a living artist breathing life into inanimate material; striving, in an obsessive process of revision, perhaps in vain, to give thought and feeling to raw material. ‘I just find it unbelievably inspiring and powerful,’ says Gormley. ‘Why do [we] continually try to use our energy to transform the residue of geological time into something that approximates or pictures life? Well, we do it because we know we’re going to die.’ 

Gormley has been known to experiment beyond the bounds of physical matter. In a 2017 project with Acute Art and astrophysicist Priya Natarajan, titled Lunatick, he turned the human body into an intergalactic spaceship, through VR. Although he describes the experiment as fun, he concluded that ‘virtual reality is better dealing with space than it is dealing with objects’.

‘Sculpture becomes so important in a time where we are asked to leave our bodies behind, either through screens, VR headsets or the Metaverse,’ he says. ‘While the virtual gives us extraordinary godlike powers, to fly to the moon, the necessary correlative balancing of that is art in all its forms of first-hand experience: seeing paint on canvas or a lump of displaced material that then you’re invited to reconsider because it’s found a new situation in the world. What sculpture offers is the reinforcing of the palpable [and the] experience of touchable, feelable things in a space that you share, something that you can walk through, walk around and be with in time.’

In ‘Body Field’, an entire floor is dedicated to nine of Gormley’s Knotwork sculptures, which use interweaving linear formations that cluster to emphasise areas of compression, emotion or pain. As Gormley describes, they are ‘an attempt to articulate the pathology of a body. Not in terms of the mechanics, but in terms of its emotional zone of tension and fluidity.’

On the top floor are four cosmic drawings. ‘I realised that the drawings were utterly essential to the way that I work. They’re a kind of seedbed of everything. I draw every day. I realised that I hadn’t acknowledged their importance adequately. They act as a catalyst for people to be constantly aware of the bigger picture, the truth of an expanding universe… all the determinants that we take for granted are not there by chance; [that] the air we breathe [and] the atmosphere we depend on is the result of the activity, bacteria or archaea that started 3.7 billion years ago.’ 

‘You might say, “What the fuck has this got to do with a sculpture exhibition?” Well, I think it has a lot. If sculpture is about trying to make sense of the material phenomena that surround us, [then] these immersions or connectivities are really important,’ he says. ‘All the works in the show are diagnostic instruments through which we can perhaps begin to understand our own condition.’

If, as Gormley claims, the body is a place as opposed to an object, then his work is perhaps well placed to house it all: the burden of occupying a human body, and the freedom of the conscious mind, our strained, unsustainable dependence on the earth’s resources, and our delusions about liberated individualism. 

I leave Gormley’s studio with a mind blown and a brain in knots. He is an artist of microscopic analyses and maximalist aspirations. His verbal justifications, like his work, are not just conceived, but immaculately sculpted before being let out into the world. A package of sculptural prowess, conceptual ingenuity and hyper-contextualisation is what sets Gormley apart; in which making is afforded equal importance as giving voice to what’s made.

Antony Gormley: ‘Body Field’, until 17 December 2022 at Xavier Hufkens, St-Georges, Brussels. antonygormley.com; xavierhufkens.com

Belgian artist Harald Thys has collaborated with Brussels gallery and design company Maniera on an exhibition that expands its focus on unique industrial design projects. Thys is best known for working with Jos de Gruyter, creating dreamlike sculptures and drawings that evoke folk art and children’s drawings. 

Piip is an electric car, a design born not from focus groups and decades of carefully curated brand heritage, but out of Thys’ long-standing obsession with cars and car culture. 

The design itself references the rounded, proto-aerodynamic forms of early mass-market ‘people’s cars’, combined with the naïve imagery of a child’s idealistic representation – bonnet, passenger compartment, boot.

Wheels and headlights are kept small, with the circular motif extending to mirrors and doorhandles. The bodywork is rounded and friendly, with no aggressive angles or voracious-looking ducts. 

Maniera has always been about invited collaborations, bringing architects, artists, and designers together to create ‘functional objects’ in a gallery context.

To bring this project to life, Thys worked with Belgian car designer Lowie Vermeersch, formerly of Pininfarina and now head of the Granstudio mobility design agency. 

For Vermeersch, the partnership was a welcome diversion from the industry’s current path; he describes Piip as ‘a modestly sweet design, far from all the evil and malicious car designs of the last decade’.

For the exhibition, the gallery becomes a virtual car showroom, complete with imaginary branding and 3D-printed models.

‘Harald Thys: PiiP’

At Maniera, Place de la Justice 27, 28 1000 Brussels, until 13 November 2022 

maniera.be, granstudio.com

Mexican artist Bosco Sodi devised his recipe for Brussels sprouts, which calls for Parmesan cheese, bacon and cherry tomatoes, ‘one time when there wasn’t much to choose from in the fridge’. ‘It’s quick and healthy, and is excellent paired with good bread and wine,’ he tells us. With its alluring charm and embrace of serendipity, the dish calls to mind the artist’s monumental spheres, handcrafted from local clay at his Casa Wabi art centre in Oaxaca, Mexico. Fired in a makeshift kiln on the beach to achieve terracotta-hued, cracked and scorched surfaces, these primordial, planetary forms celebrate the endurance of traditional craft and the beauty that can be found in imperfection. 

As featured in our monthly Artist’s Palate series, a Wallpaper* homage to our favourite contemporary art

Bosco Sodi’s recipe for Brussels sprouts with Parmesan cheese, bacon and cherry tomatoes

6 bacon slices
olive oil
600g Brussels sprouts 
125g butter
300g cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
red wine vinegar
50g Parmesan cheese, grated

Method

Fry the bacon in olive oil until it is crunchy, then remove and dab with a paper towel to soak up the fat. Cut the bacon into small pieces. Cut each sprout into four pieces, then fry in butter until they are brownish on the outside. Add the cherry tomatoes and mustard and fry for about 4-5 minutes, gently mixing the tomatoes with the sprouts. Stir in the bacon pieces, then transfer everything to a plate. Add a little extra virgin olive oil and some red wine vinegar and mix together. Top with Parmesan. Ready to eat!!!

Bosco Sodi’s solo show, titled ‘What goes around comes around’  and including specially created new works, will take place at Venice’s Palazzo Vendramin Grimani, Venice, 20 April – 27 November 2022, boscosodi.com

A version of this article appears in the April 2022 issue of Wallpaper*, on newsstands now and available to subscribers 

The work of Rachel Eulena Williams is not strictly painting or sculpture. It occupies an intuitive and improvisational middle ground: fragmented compositions that are hand-glued, stitched, knotted and lashed together but also painted, with pigment functioning as both essential structure and embellishment. 

Despite this layered approach, the Miami-born, New York-based artist always begins with the same humble material: rolls of untreated canvas and cotton. In ‘Joy & Rain’ at Xavier Hufkens in Brussels, Williams’ vibrant new work presents tensions: between two and three dimensions; frugality and opulence; hope and pain; liquid and solid; ‘high’ and ‘low’ artistic endeavours.

Though fundamentally abstract, there are suggestions of recognisable, albeit fragmented forms in these contorted assemblages: perhaps the subtle curve of a body or a cluster of flower petals. As anticipated in the show’s title, Williams’ new work makes use of the raindrop motif in droplets of fluid, blue-hued pigments. This is also a nod to Melvonna Ballenger’s 1978 film Rain (Nyesha), which explores a female journey towards self-awareness and empowerment, and also a poetic meditation on the potency of rainy days. The show is a tale of optimism and angst. Bold, luminous colours meet the complex social implications of cotton and rope; rain as a metaphor for melancholy and renewal. 

Williams’ work can be seen in the context of Black American artists’ contribution to modern art, with particular reference to pioneering women such as Betye Saar or Howardena Pinnell. It is a play on structures, both literal and metaphorical. As the artist explains: ‘“Joy & Rain” is both personal and comprehensive. For this exhibition, I dove deeper into the poetic and social narrative that stimulates my work.’ 

Her unorthodox use of materials frees painting from the rigidity of the formal canvas; her bold palette liberates forms from Western art history’s systematic othering of colour, sentiments reflected in the titles of the works: Strange Woman, American Fruit and Black and Blue. Williams’ work, retrospective and hyper-contemporary, forms part of the ongoing reconstruction of art history.

INFORMATION

Rachel Eulena Williams, ‘Joy & Rain’, until 19 February 2022, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels. xavierhufkens.com

Brussels-based gallery Maniera is bringing good design and good company together under one roof with a new series of pop-up evenings at its art bar, hosted by artists, architects, designers and curators. 

The evenings will take place in a space within the gallery entitled ‘1b’, which has been designed by the Belgian artist Koenraad Dedobbeleer. Dedobbeleer is best known for creating sculptural installations out of everyday objects such as chairs, tables, brooms and water bottles, in order to offer new perceptions of the things we so often take for granted. 

 ‘1b’ is a continuation of that work with Maniera transformed into an almost surrealist landscape filled with modular chairs, twisting candlesticks, and table lamps shaped like soft-serve ice cream. 

Until mid-January, this unique bar space will play host to a series of evenings organised by creatives such as American artist and sculptor Rita McBride, who experiments with design and architectural objects; ‘protean’ artist Pierre Leguillon, known for reworking images from mass media; and experimental glassware designer Marta Armengol. 

The series of events is the 21st century equivalent to the ‘Happenings’ of 1960s New York, with each evening’s artist-host dictating the music, food, performance, and all around atmosphere of the night. Guests are invited to hang out and engage with both the art and people that surround them. It is a place for jovial conversations amongst old and new friends, as much as it is a place for challenging, intellectual discussions amongst fellow art-enthusiasts.

‘A good bar is a space for sharing pleasurable moments in the company of friends or acquaintances,’ says architect Asli Çiçek about the project. ‘Where easy chit-chats and deeper conversations fuse amid good drinks… As an interior typology, the bar is one of the most enjoyable spaces to be designed and experienced.’ 

 ‘1b’ is certainly a bar that promises to be enjoyable by offering up a bouquet of life’s most immediate pleasures – art, music, drinks and good company. The event series will happen once a week at the Maniera gallery until 14 January 2022. 

INFORMATION

maniera.be

With its rich artistic heritage, Belgium is fertile territory for art and design collectors, and two of them – Belgian architect Olivier Dwek and businessman Frédéric Hanrez – recently united to create a stunning new gallery space in Brussels. Called New Hope, it opened its doors during the Brafa Art Fair in January. 

Dwek is a tousle-haired character with a wickedly good eye and the confidence to take a morning Zoom call in his bathrobe. Architect to Belgium’s crème de la crème for the past 20 years, he is still something of a secret beyond the country’s borders (though, with seven Parisian projects under way and the release of a monograph published by Rizzoli, this will soon change). Growing up in a business-focused family, Dwek was an outlier with a passion for art.

He devoured autobiographies of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, learned to draw nudes at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, then studied architecture at the Institut Victor Horta. He is a collector, too. ‘Art helped me to sharpen my eye,’ he states. At only 28, he was commissioned to refurbish Louis Vuitton’s Brussels store, and in 2000, he founded his own studio, creating light-filled, modernist-inspired homes for well-heeled clients, often curating the art and design within. 

Hanrez is a Belgian entrepreneur as discreet and low-key as Dwek is bold and exuberant. A scion of an illustrious Belgian family with a lifetime passion for collecting, Hanrez realised about 20 years ago that he could get more bang for his buck with design. ‘I prefer to have the best in design, rather than second best in painting,’ he says. Having spent part of his childhood in Wisconsin, he was attracted to the craft spirit of American design, and now owns one of the world’s finest private collections of American 20th-century furniture, notably from New Hope, Pennsylvania.

In 2003, Hanrez inherited a building in central Brussels. Part of a family estate, the building had been turned into a ballroom by his great-great-great grandfather in 1865 to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary. By the time Hanrez took it over, the ballroom was a ruin. It sat directly across the street from one of Brussels’ most iconic pieces of architecture (and a Unesco World Heritage Site), the former home of art nouveau master Victor Horta, which is now the Horta Museum. In fact, Hanrez says, Horta chose the address because the ballroom was low enough to afford him a view of its splendid garden. When Hanrez asked for a permit to raze the ballroom and construct a new building, the local authorities ordered him not to build any higher, in order to keep Horta’s beloved view intact.

Hanrez commissioned Dwek, a friend, to come up with a new space for what he calls his ‘three-dimensional art’. They tore down the old structure, leaving the street façade, which the authorities also required be left intact. They then searched out extraordinary materials – black lava floor stones from Malta, Swiss-made floor-to-ceiling windows, and black ‘Kolumba’ bricks handmade by family firm Petersen Tegl in Denmark.

New Hope took nearly five years of construction. Though it measures only 550 sq m, it feels larger, thanks to plenty of natural light, a double-height ceiling and multiple levels. Out back, the parallel lines of the awning and patio wall frame the park’s mature trees like a painting.

Graphic black and white tones provide a neutral backdrop for the collections, with a dramatic dash of colour from a massive green marble wall. Dwek meticulously selected the stones so that the veins would create a mirror effect, like a two-way Rorschach inkblot (the green wall also makes a nod to Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion).

Overlapping stone steps to a raised ground-floor level create a flowing effect, like flat rocks in a stream. A skylight is supported by black steel beams that Dwek compares to the legs of a Jean Prouvé table. The black lava flooring extends beyond the sliding glass wall to the patio, creating continuity inside and out. ‘There is no difference between architecture and interior architecture,’ insists Dwek, noting that predecessors such as Horta and Mies van der Rohe would not have dreamt of doing a building’s envelope and leaving the interior to someone else.

Standing in the garden, he points out the parallels between New Hope and the Horta house rising behind it: rooftops that are peaked on the left and lower on the right, three vertical windows on one side, bay windows on the other.

Hanrez is using the gallery to host temporary exhibitions, often in dialogue with his own collection, which is rich in pieces by Americans (George Nakashima, Phillip Lloyd Powell, Paul Evans and Sam Maloof ) and Belgians (Ado Chale and Jules Wabbes), as well as rare Scandinavian design. ‘I’m trying to keep this space dynamic so that people come,’ says Hanrez. ‘They know something will be happening here, and it’s always different.’

For the images on these pages (and in his new book), Dwek filled New Hope with works from Hanrez’s holdings and two other major Belgium-based collections. Hanrez’s American masterpieces, including an elaborately sculpted bronze cabinet by Paul Evans, shared the space with furniture by the likes of Jean Royère and Alexandre Noll from the collection of Frenchman Daniel Lebard, another low-profile figure. ‘He denies it, but he is the world’s biggest collector of French furniture from the 1950s,’ Dwek says. On the walls, Dwek put artwork by Richard Prince, Richard Serra and Philip Guston, all belonging to the collection of his friend Charles Riva.

Including New Hope, three of the nine buildings that Dwek selected for the book are foundations or centres for art, and he is keen to design more. ‘There aren’t many architects who know how to do it well,’ he says. ‘A piece of artwork releases vibes into the atmosphere – positive, negative, happy, sad. Architecture plays an enormous role when it can make those vibes resonate.’ 

INFORMATION

New Hope, 26-28 Rue Américaine, Brussels

Olivier Dwek: In the Light of Modernity, $65, published by Rizzoli

rizzoliusa.com 

A version of this article appears in the November 2021 issue of Wallpaper* (W*271) on newsstands and available to subscribers.

In the early 16th century, the aristocratic family of Thurn und Taxis bought a 45-hectare parcel of marshy land on the then-outskirts of Brussels. They had been appointed postmasters by Philip the Fair, the Duke of Burgundy, and held a similar position for the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Their acquisition would become the centre of Europe’s first international postal service, a Thurn und Taxis enterprise connecting the Spanish Netherlands, Burgundy and Spain with the rest of Europe. The road that crossed the site’s collection of industrial buildings and horse-feeding pastures took the family name, translated into French as Tour et Taxis, giving birth to the district of Tour & Taxis.

By the beginning of the 20th century, it had evolved into a busy logistical ecosystem; goods arrived via train and canal and from there, they were dispatched. Everything passed customs and registration at the Gare Maritime, the complex’s central station. Unfortunately, with the arrival of the EU Customs Union, and later the Schengen Area, customs gradually became irrelevant and the operation obsolete. Tour & Taxis remained disused for 20 years until it was bought by local private developer Extensa in 2001.

Since then, Tour & Taxis has been undergoing something of a reimagining, swapping logistical revolution for sustainability as it seeks to reinvent itself as an eco-friendly district. The area, situated by the Brussels canal and just to the north-west of the Belgian capital’s centre, currently mostly consists of large converted warehouses and offices of brick, iron and glass next to the magnificent, historic, castiron-frame freight station. Extensa’s vision is anchored in the refurbishment of the existing historic buildings to ‘return Brussels’ heritage’ to its inhabitants, as well as a few new-builds. The first renovations and completions started opening in 2005. The aim is to create an eco-led, mixed-use district by restoring as many existing buildings as possible and introducing renewable-energy and energy-saving technologies.

The district’s industrial heritage means that most of the existing buildings are characterised by large volumes, so are well suited to become event spaces and offices. One of the first buildings to open in 2005, the Sheds – a sawtooth storage warehouse designed in 1903 by Ernest Van Humbeeck and reimagined for Extensa by local studio Archi 2000 – has four event spaces, accommodating 10,000 guests each, while Maison de la Poste – a 1904 Frédéric Bruneel building renovated by architects Altiplan in 2019 – is now a conference centre consisting of 15 event spaces that showcase its carefully restored industrial architecture. There are galleries in the refreshed Hôtel des Douanes (a 1907 building also by Van Humbeeck) and more are to come, repurposing the remaining historic buildings in the area. Meanwhile, the few new-builds on site include offices by Neutelings Riedijk (a project that is currently the largest Passivhaus scheme in Belgium), Cepezed, and Samyn and Partners.

The district’s flagship building is the Gare Maritime, whose architectural works were completed in autumn 2020. The retail and food hall within are scheduled to launch in September 2021, marking an important landmark in the area’s redevelopment. At around 45,000 sq m, it was Europe’s largest freight train station at the beginning of the 20th century. The building has now been refreshed, and 12 new cross-laminated timber (CLT) pavilions have been added within.

Gare Maritime is the area’s commercial heart, housing hospitality, shops and offices. It has been carefully restored and redesigned by a team consisting of architects Neutelings Riedijk, Bureau Bouwtechniek and JDMA, and engineers Ney & Partners and Boydens. One of the key design drivers was adherence to the circular economy, salvaging existing materials but also making sure that all interventions are both light-touch and demountable. It boasts the largest CLT structure in Europe and the building is energy neutral. Gardens, designed by landscape architects Omgeving, help regulate the internal temperature and are watered using the rainwater harvesting system.

Additionally, the site uses geothermal heat and 17,200 sq m of photovoltaics on the roof, marking the biggest move to solar energy in the capital. The developers are even bringing a tram line to the area by creating a new bridge over the canal (the water created a barrier that had so far been an obstacle in bringing public transport to this part of town). This, and the fact that many of the streets in Tour & Taxis are pedestrianised, means car use will be discouraged, although there will be underground parking space.

A number of apartment buildings are currently in construction. They are the start to what Kris Verhellen, Extensa’s CEO, hopes is a whole new residential neighbourhood, called Park Lane. Verhellen is acutely aware of the inevitable gentrification of the neighbouring area of Molenbeek, which has a sizable Maghrebi immigrant population. He talks about the scheme’s tax contribution and the state’s responsibility to create an economic system where immigrants aren’t priced out. While the scheme’s sustainability credentials are undeniable, one wonders whether more could be done to ensure links are created to existing communities.

It is true that some of the residential offerings will be rent-capped so that they remain affordable, while future plans include a school and a retirement home. A nine-hectare publicly accessible park, currently in construction, will include a community farm and a garden in an expanse of green that connects the site to the canal, making it one of the biggest parks in Brussels.

Do these interventions go deep enough into the fabric of the existing local community to engage them with the scheme in a meaningful way? Could more be done? One thing is for certain; if Tour & Taxis does deliver, it will provide a precedent of reuse and eco-friendly redevelopment that can be used in other historic settings. Which is exactly why it is important to ensure that social balance takes the same priority as environmental, as it has become increasingly clear that they are inseparable in the quest for sustainability.

INFORMATION

tour-taxis.com

Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is best known for art that consumes its viewers. These entanglements, blood-red, black or white threads often ensnare personal objects – from clothes, keys, boats, suitcases, to the artist herself. 

Shiota’s large-scale installation art often appears as though humans can weave webs, but at Galerie Templon, Brussels, the artist has downsized to spider-scale for a new diorama. 

Like many artists during our planetary confinement, the artist took the opportunity to reflect on the comfort blanket of domesticity. This resulted in a parallel world, a model city of furniture bound up in black and red thread. 

Her new show, ‘Living Inside’ at Galerie Templon, Brussels, introduces a series of delicate sculptural works, focusing on notions of home, immobility, silence, confinement and the fragmentation of our daily routines. 

As the artist explains, ‘We are connected, since we are all in the same situation. Everyone is sitting at home looking at their furniture and asking questions about the outside world, which right now has been reduced to a mere memory.’ 

Multimedia artist Chiharu Shiota, in April 2019 in her Berlin studio

Using doll's houses and miniature furniture, her Shiota plays on the notion of scale and our new bond with everyday objects. It creates both a familiar and unnerving effect – are these objects wrapped in a comforting cocoon, or held captive? In this ambiguous, bittersweet approach, she unpacks the codes of a living space that has been drastically reframed. 

Elsewhere, the artist presents a new series of drawings, created in the solitude of her deserted studio. These enigmatic, spectral figures are trapped in waves or spiral forms, interlinked by red or black threads. 

Shiota is an artist who has long been gripped by the invisible ties between beings. Frozen in time, her new miniature worlds evoke both home comforts and an unsettling universe, shrunken in scale and potential. They invite us to meditate on the surrealism of the last year when time was warped, and the macro became micro. 

INFORMATION

Chiharu Shiota, ’Living Inside’, until 24 July, Galerie Templon, Brussels. templon.com

ADDRESS

Rue Veydt 13A
1060 Brussels

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Two years in the making, the new Brussels studio of designer Noro Khachatryan opens with a minimalist interior conceived to showcase art and design pieces, at the same time serving as a functional workshop space. The studio is set within a 19th-century industrial building in Brussels’ Molenbeek neighbourhood, and its two floors will host work and exhibition spaces for both Studio Khachatryan and local gallery Harlan Levey Projects, acting as a multidisciplinary ‘cultural hub’ merging art and design.

Khachatryan founded the eponymous studio in 2010, working between furniture design, objects and architecture. Inspired by classical architecture, in a decade of design work through his studio he has developed an essential visual language based on simple geometries and rich material palettes. On the other hand, Harlan Levey has run his eponymous art exhibition space in nearby Ixelles since 2012, and with this new space, the gallery will focus on expanding its scope with a mix of art, design and creative labs, ‘to create interesting ideas and outcomes for the now and for the future.’ The centre of a new creative hub in Brussels, the art and design space's neighbours include artists Emmanuel Van der Auwera (whose studio is located in the same building), Marcin Dudek, Amélie Bouvier and Sean Crossley.

‘The location and history of the building were both great inspirations,’ says Armenian-born Khachatryan, who led the interior design project with his team. ‘I think it’s important to listen to and respect a structure when amending it. Over the years, the building had been used as a depot for beer and shoes and even as a mosque. At times I imagine many people working there; at others, silence and storage. It felt important to leave some of these traces present, and a few elements of the original bricks and beams were left visible.’

The space is designed to honour both approaches, and its interiors are an upgrade to the traditional white box concept. While the colour and material palette of the space has been kept to a minimum with white walls and ceilings, details such as the stone tiled flooring and an angular black steel staircase connecting the two floors bring the minimalist interiors to life. The building is accessed by a small courtyard, which, the designer explains, ‘provides the ability to create a sort of organised urban feeling, a passage between the chaotic city and the contemplative practices hiding behind it'.

The space's inaugural display includes a solo show of artist Marcin Dudek by Harlan Levey Projects, while Studio Khachatryan offers a panoramic view of its decade of projects, with some early works as well as more recent collections of furniture.

INFORMATION

studiokhachatryan.com

ADDRESS

Isidoor Teirlinckstraat 65
1080 Brussel
Belgium

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Belgian contemporary art gallery, Xavier Hufkens opened a third exhibition space on 18 June at 44 rue Van Eyck, in the heart of Brussels; just a two-minute walk from its existing spaces on rue St-Georges.

Designed by Belgian architect Bernard Dubois, whose work is characterised by bold, minimalist forms, the 350m2 gallery occupies a 1960s building with a concrete facade. Fitting, then that the indoor spaces, both public and private, have a poured concrete floor. The front and rear exhibition rooms are connected by a 9m corridor with a rectangular recess, creating a third gallery space in the centre. Thanks to the impressive floor-to-ceiling window, the front gallery is visible from the street, and illuminated by abundant natural light. The spacious rear gallery is likewise punctuated with rectangular windows, letting in generous views of the garden, which opens up the possibility of outdoor sculpture displays.

With the new space comes increased opportunity for experimentation and conversation. ‘I want it to be a place where artists, art enthusiasts, collectors and students come together around inspiring exhibitions,' says the gallery's namesake founder.

First to show in the Van Eyck space is American contemporary artist Sterling Ruby, who has titled his exhibition ‘A Relief Lashed + A Still Pose'. Consisting of three-dimensional wooden assemblages covered in dark green, red, brown, blue and yellow paint, each piece draws on the artist's Widw paintings that were first exhibited on rue St-Georges in 2018. These have been made from discarded wood: heaps of offcuts, broken packing crates, damaged pallets and splintered stretcher frame, all from Ruby's LA studio; alongside pieces from the barn of Ruby's late mother. Their rectangular forms and superimposed cross-bar structures suggest windows, which Ruby perceives as openings to alternative societies, and sources of inspiration and light. Alluring in their own right, the works are especially captivating in the front and rear galleries, where they stand in dialogue with the architecture.

The decision to display artworks in wood is apt considering the construction of the back-of-house spaces. Unlike the main galleries, which have tall, white walls that lend themselves to all types of exhibitions, the private spaces are lined with panels of light plywood. Entering from the rear gallery, two of these panels conceal double doors that lead to Hufkens' office, which also serves as a private viewing room, including works by Josef Albers and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. The adjacent workspace is clad entirely in the same wood, from furniture to shelving to a lowered ceiling that offers an added sense of intimacy. A sliding door at the end reveals a wooden corridor, which leads to the central gallery space.

The van Eyck gallery represents a significant investment that further establishes Hufkens as a leading player on Brussels' art scene. Even though the idea of opening a space abroad has regularly crossed his mind, Hufkens ultimately decided to stay in the Belgian capital, to better serve his roster of international artists, for whom he has unlocked a loyal local following. ‘Quality has always been the thread of our programme. I want to prioritise it over anything else, and I feel I can better guarantee that when I am present,' says Hufkens. ‘If we do this right, I believe art can reach beyond our walls.'

INFORMATION

‘Sterling Ruby: A Relief Lashed + A Still Pose' runs from 18 June to 1 August

xavierhufkens.com; bernarddubois.com

ADDRESS

44 rue Van Eyck, Brussels

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Since 2018, Collectible in Brussels has established a new format for design fairs. Now on its third edition, the showcase is growing – 2020 includes more areas of design, becoming a gathering of multigenerational talent from different fields.

This year’s show features over 100 international participants including returning galleries Maniera, Valerie Traan and Camp, and new exhibitors such as Barcelona’s SIDE Gallery and design brand Theoreme Editions, set up by David Giroire and Jerome Bazzocchi in 2019.

Set up under the roof of Brussels’ Vanderborght building, the fair mixes cutting edge and experimental design from established names as well as new talent, with independent designers, galleries and cultural institutions working together. The result is a diverse, multidisciplinary display that offers curated sections and themed projects, for a unique panoramic of exciting design ventures.

New section: Bespoke

Among the new curated sections of the fair is Bespoke, showcasing new high-end commissions by design studios and brands. Included is a debut collection by Mexico-based French designer Llewellyn Chupin, titled Terra. Inspired by her travels, Terra realises forms that focus on materiality and archetypal shapes.

Scenography by Tomas Dirrix

The entrance of the Vanderborght building has been handed over to architect Tomas Dirrix, whose practice focuses on cultural influences and materiality, with an imaginative outlook on space and construction. At Collectible, Dirrix has created a scenography inspired by Roman ruins, greeting visitors to the location and setting the experimental mood for at the fair.

Curated by Brent Dzekciorius

Over 30 international design studios have been selected by curator Brent Dzekciorius in a new section that offers ‘a space for radical experimentation and discovery.’ Here, pioneering processes and production techniques in new work sit on earthenware gradient plinths designed by by Studio Döppel. Included in the roster is Rotterdam’s Supertoys Supertoys studio, whose playful pieces are intended to blur the boundaries between tool and artefact, and designer Ward Wijnant’s Blend project (pictured) that is a colourful exploration on the use of timber. Photography: Ronald Smits

New section: Food Design

A novel concept unveiled at this year’s edition focuses on food design, showcasing creatives that explore innovation in this micro-section. The seven multi-sensory displays include works by Austrian designer Nadja Zerunian, who presents an investigation on honey. Serving the liquid objects in glass, bronze, gold and pearl allows Zerunian to test the balance of goodness, ‘that, if not carefully calibrated turns toxic,’ she explains. ‘The objects are serving prosaic & ceremonial tasks, but are ultimately examining notions of love, lust & temptation.’ 

Gallery highlight: Atelier Jespers

Returning local gallery Atelier Jespers’ display references the work of Ghent-based collective Stand Van Zaken. Inspired by post-radical, avant-garde studio Alchimia and its founder Alessandro Guerriero, the group repurpose mundane materials such as steel drainpipes to create furniture and lighting pieces.

INFORMATION

Collectible is on view 5-8 March at The Vanderborght building

collectible.design

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Rue de l'Ecuyer 50
1000 Bruxelles
Belgium

Co-working space innovator Fosbury & Sons is spreading its humanist approach to office life even further with its fourth space, and third Brussels location, Albert II-laan. Interior design studio Going East has brought a ‘Brazil meets Wall Street’ aesthetic to the 5,000 sq m co-working space in Brussels’ business district, creating warm, lofty spaces with plants and spiral staircases.

With their mantra ‘The office is dead!’ the three Fosbury & Son founders – Serge Hannecart, Stijn Geeraets and Maarten Van Gool – had some fun bringing their ethos of comfortable workspaces to the old-fashioned office building, the ‘SEVEN’. Once a clunky office building stuck in the past, it has now been renovated by ASSAR Architects and been given a complete interior makeover.

At the Albert, you’ll find a broad and welcoming ground floor lobby, more reminiscent of a jazz club than a reception, with its grand piano and in-house restaurant Midori. Across this area, architectural elements, such as the black staircases or the dark bamboo wood surfaces, are given plenty of space and become functional design features.

The Fosbury & Sons co-working concept generates the atmosphere of a cultural space or a hotel – the founders love bringing new life to tired buildings, mixing unique design objects and comfortable seating. Beyond trends, their style is about creating a high quality of life whether you’re focussing on work, or taking your lunch break.

In 2018, Fosbury & Sons renovated Constantin Brodzki’s 1970 cement firm HQ in Brussels Boitsfort, turning an impressively brutal building into a welcoming co-working space filled with design objects from Marrakech, cream-coloured textiles and warm lighting. Soon after they opened another space west of the city in a satellite business park, Fosbury & Sons Alfons, which is filled with green plants and daylight.

Just like the first two Brussels locations, the business district was not an obvious choice, but it’s an area where the three founders see potential. Within walking distance to Brussels Nord, it’s not far from the KANAL Centre Pompidou, which is set to become a massive cultural draw for the city after its completion.

Fosbury & Sons now provide workspace for 1,170 people in Brussels across the three locations, plus the first space they opened in Antwerp in 2016. However, they aren’t stopping there. With Axel Vervoordt, Coussée & Goris architecten and VDD Project Development they will be bringing their cosy design-led concept to the former Actiris building near the Brussels stock exchange.

The upcoming year will see the team spreading their wings internationally, with Fosbury & Sons Prinsengracht and Westerdok in Amsterdam and Fosbury & Sons Marina, in Valencia, all opening in 2020.

INFORMATION
fosburyandsons.com

goingeast.be

ADDRESS

Fosbury & Sons Albert
Koning Albert II-laan 7
1210 Brussels
Belgium

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Picture Western Europe in the late 19th, early 20th century. Post-industrial revolution, a small transit country like Belgium was in a state of flux both literally and figuratively. As the country with the highest density of rail networks in the world by 1875, the way people travelled there changed drastically.

That’s around the time when Delvaux, the Brussels-based leather goods brand, made all the difference. Founded in 1829 – one year prior to the independence of the Kingdom of Belgium – Delvaux swiftly progressed from its luggage-making origins and became the first brand worldwide to file a patent for handbags in 1908.

The realisation that women would want to keep their most precious belongings close to hand in practical, small bags during their travels turned out to be a visionary move.

Surreally, the grand opener of the Musée Delvaux in Brussels – which was completed at the beginning of last year but opened just recently to coincide with Delvaux’s 190th anniversary and to celebrate a period of increasing international expansion – is a monumental black epoxy resin Brillant handbag, the house’s emblematic style, lacquered seven times over to bestow it with a true-to-life leather effect.

‘A disproportionately large bag in that space – I just think it’s fun,' smiles Bob Verhelst, the scenographer who was tapped by Delvaux to devise the Musée’s concept, and is the mind behind over ten of the Antwerp Fashion Museum MoMu's most recent exhibitions.

The story of Delvaux is very much one of collaboration, and the brand’s choice to work with Verhelst is a serendipitous one. ‘If you look at how Christina [Zeller, creative director of Delvaux] draws the collections, how she subtly edits the classic designs to turn them into contemporary pieces, I see a parallel,' he says. ‘I, too, am quite classical in my outlook, but there’s always a twist to my work. We have a similar frame of mind.' 

As the oldest fine leather luxury goods house in the world, it could seem Delvaux has a dusty burden to bear. But even in the process of building a museum, the brand manages to keep things light and playful, even when the subject at hand is historical and reverential.

Creating a museum, Delvaux’s chairman and CEO Jean-Marc Loubier says, ‘is quite the challenge even if you have interesting elements to show. I saw it as a necessity, because Delvaux has a very long legacy, but, even more because the brand is an inventor.' He continues: ‘My approach for the Delvaux Museum was to consider it as a meeting and melting pot or moment. It tells three correlated stories: the story of Delvaux, the history of the handbag and the story of Belgitude. The Museum conveys our specific identity which is about being historical, open and Belgian.' 

Housed in former military barracks occupied by Delvaux since 1994, the museum occupies the same building as the brand’s design studio and atelier. Before entering the exhibition space, original Delvaux designs in dust bags tagged with the year they were created line archival shelves – testimony to the heritage of a house nearly two centuries of age. The Musée, however, disdains chronology.

‘We combed the archives and formulated themes,' explains Verhelst. ‘There is a different story to tell compared to other leather goods brands. Delvaux made luggage only for a brief moment. Our focus lies with the history of the handbag, of which Delvaux holds the oldest patent.' 

Older archive pieces were selected with on the basis of their design particularities, such as special locks or crocodile leathers. As Delvaux launches a new collection twice yearly, more recent styles will also be displayed in vitrines on rotation.

With such a wealth of designs to choose from, editing down the huge archive was not an easy task. ‘It was bit of a puzzle to include every aspect of the brand in an intelligible way,' Verhelst admits. ‘I wanted to avoid an overload of information and imagery.' In the end, the Musée radiates exactly what he aimed for: ‘The experience is pleasurable and calm; the same feeling you get when you step into a Delvaux store.'

INFORMATION
delvaux.com

ADDRESS

7, Boulevard Louis Schmidtlaan
1040 Brussels

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‘Boring’, ‘banal’, ‘bureaucratic’ — forget the chocolates or the chips and mayo, Brexit (the biggest B-word) has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Brits when it comes to Brussels. It doesn’t help too, that thanks to social media, Belgium has become a butt of architectural jokes – the Instagram page ‘UglyBelgianHouses’ boasts more than 60,000 followers.

The antidote to this PR problem would be to do as other historic European cities do: fall back on its history and play up the splendour of its architectural past, in Brussels’ case, pushing a Gothic, Neo-renaissance and Art Nouveau agenda.

‘The city is encouraging new projects while also celebrating its 20th century architecture’

Brussels does not ignore its undoubtedly rich heritage – that would be a crime – but the city does not rest on historical architectural laurels either. Refreshingly, Brussels is now abuzz with new work, encouraging new projects, while also celebrating its 20th-century architecture (as demonstrated with the Brussels Biennale of Modern Architecture which launched in 2014), and striking an interesting balance between old and new. 

A healthy mix of large and small projects are currently under way, comprising work from studios both local and international. Most of this new work is civic, while offices and new housing — none of which run the risk appearing on the aforementioned Instagram page — are also being constructed in the outer reaches of the city.

Portentous grey skies and a glacial drizzle did little to dampen spirits on the preview day of Art Brussels (25-28 April), where 148 galleries descended on Tours & Taxis for the 37th edition of the ‘discovery’ fair. With upwards of 250 art fairs jostling for a position on the calendar each year, Art Brussels managing director Anne Vierstraete says the competition is welcome. (Case in point: the Belgian fair aligns with Gallery Berlin Weekend, Artmonte-carlo, Art Vancouver and Art3f Luxembourg this year.)

Still, Art Brussels claims an above-average gallery retention rate of 70 per cent compared to around 50 per cent for major art fairs (according to the 2019 USB Art Market Report). So what compels exhibitors to keep returning to the Belgian capital? ‘“Daring” is a very important word in our [the Belgian] identity,’ explains Vierstraete, ‘because we have to translate the kind of things our public expects to see, meaning the latest trends in art creation and the way the art market functions.’ And while the players may seem familiar (a common gripe of collectors), Art Brussels ensures it’s never complacent, welcoming 36 new galleries to the fold and giving carte blanche to nine emerging spaces disrupting convention in its new Invited section.

Here are five galleries to make a beeline for at Art Brussels 2019...

01 Kristin Hjellegjerde (London, Berlin)
The strapline of London and Berlin-based gallery Kristin Hjellegarde – ‘for those who collect tomorrow’ – couldn’t have proven more apt at its technology-tinted booth. The gallerist was ‘thrilled’ to mark her return to the fair for the third year running with an inspired showing of work ‘based on new media’. Robin Kang’s handwoven tapestries of Jacquard, cotton and metallic yarn thread an unlikely connection between modern technology and textile manufacturing, while New Zealand artist André Hemer deftly melds digital media with painting.

02 Martos Gallery (New York)
The US gallery is dedicating its entire booth to a solo presentation of Kayode Ojo, in an extension of the Tennessee-born artist’s first New York solo exhibition it staged in November 2018. Ojo combines mass-produced objects and pop culture to mine ideas of physical beauty while exploring the objectification of the body. ‘The work considers with luxury signifiers, playing with both illusions and delusions of glamour, all the while embracing the grandeur of it all,’ explains gallery director Ebony L Haynes of the booth, where readymade sculptures hold court with self-portraits. At just 28 years old, Ojo has developed a formal visual language that belies his age – watch this space.

03 The Ryder Projects (London)
With a slew of colossal artworks and Instagenic booths vying for attention at the fair, Jaime Pitarch’s suspense-filled installation Object/Subject/Abject in the Discovery section drew our attention because it was, quite refreshingly, neither of those. Reclaimed from the streets of Barcelona (where the artist is based), each chair in the presentation hails from a different era. The artist gradually whittled down the legs to the bare minimum, removing the chairs’ function entirely and suspending them in ‘a state of precarious equilibrium’.

04 Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo, Brussels, New York)
Daniel Steegmann Mangrané is the subject of a solo showcase with a site-specific installation that marries the mechanical and the natural. And while it was the Spanish artist’s corner of the booth that first drew us in, we eagerly perused the works by Paulo Nazareth, Solange Pessoa, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, Neïl Beloufa and Antonio Obá on display.

05 Ballon Rouge Collective (Brussels)
Art Brussels introduces a new section Invited, with a focus on a younger generation of spaces that are challenging the traditional gallery format. Enter nomadic venture Ballon Rouge Collective, which has just settled down in Brussels with a permanent space following globetrotting exhibitions in Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, São Paulo, Paris and New York. The gallery presents works by Merve Iseri and Philip Janssens at its eye-catching melon pink booth.

INFORMATION
Art Brussels 2019 runs from 26-28 April. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Tour & Taxis
Avenue du Port 86C
1000 Brussels

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Organic forms, pop geometry and plenty of bling set the mood for this year’s Collectible design fair in Brussels. Established in autumn 2017 by art and design market veterans Clélie Debehault and Liv Vaisberg, Collectible is a conscious step away from the reductive feel of most design fairs. Favouring tomorrow’s tastemakers over yesterday’s greatest hits, Collectible is dedicated exclusively to 21st-century collectible design, and the increasing overlap of art, design, and architecture that we are currently witnessing.

This vision expands in Collectible’s second edition, which runs 14 – 17 March 2019. Art galleries and cultural institutions join forces with over 90 designers filling the sumptuous digs of the Vanderborght building, a former 1930s furniture store located in the heart of Brussels.

Among the design gallery heavyweights like Maniera and Valerie Traan, this year’s run includes young blood. Functional Art Gallery, Berlin’s first space for contemporary collectible design, will exhibit the armchairs by OrtaMiklos, while The Impermanent Collection will debut new works by artist duo Ker-Xavier.

Individual designer and design studio highlights include the modern architectural creations of Emily Forgot (represented by SKAL) and the otherworldly surfaces of Studio Furthermore’s ceramic foam forms.

There will also be two new sections of the fair this year. One of these is dedicated to art galleries exploring the porous boundaries between art and design, including Almine Rech Gallery, exhibiting the ultra-textured ceramics of Johan Creten and the dreamy tableaux of painter Jean-Baptiste Bernadet. Meanwhile, the other new section will show work by recent graduates of the Royal College of Art and the Design Academy Eindhoven, among other European design schools.

A trio of Belgian institutions, Design Museum Gent, the Brussels Design Museum and CID du Grand-Hornu, will come together to serve up a slice of history amid all the new ideas, by exhibiting their latest acquisitions and donations that span from the 14th century to the present.

Unmissable in the special projects section is an immersive tube light landscape installation by New York- and Thessaloniki-based design studio Objects of Common Interest. For those seeking refuge from the sensory overload of this year’s fair, a specially curated bookstore by the Amsterdam-based art specialist San Serriffe offers an alternative environment.

With site-specific scenography by the Rotterdam-based architects Studio Verter, Collectible will no doubt offer the perfect setting for the collision of disciplines and mould-breaking approach that this category of design defines, offering an inviting environment in which to peruse and purchase.

INFORMATION

Collectible continues until 17 March. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Rue de l’Ecuyer
1000 Brussels
Belgium

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Sinking into a deep sofa, surrounded by candles and ceramic vases filled with flowers, is not something you might associate with a hard day at work, but that’s why co-working company Fosbury & Sons’ ideas are just so radical.

Serge Hannecart, Stijn Geeraets and Maarten Van Gool, who set up Fosbury & Sons in 2016, have just launched their new Brussels outpost, following the opening of a successful first space in Antwerp. They’ve created an environment filled with warmth and comfort, based upon their well-rounded belief that a humanist, elegant and holistic work place is the best route to success.

Located just outside of the centre of Brussels, Fosbury & Sons Boitsfort occupies a 1970s office building designed by Constantin Brodzki and is the first of three Brussels spaces opening over the next year. Restoring and renovating the original building created a template for the whole space based on good design, modernism and standing out from the crowd – the architecture of the building is certainly unlike any office building we’ve seen before with its organically shaped, curved windows and amber tinted glazing.

Interiors for the space were designed by Michiel Mertens and Anaïs Torfs of Going East, who also worked on the Antwerp space. They built their temp sur temp palette upon the warm greys of the rough speckled concrete of the interior architecture, the golden tones of the timber flooring, and the lowlights of the cherry wood cupboard doors, all carefully restored and back in use.

‘We wanted to create the right balance between cool and warm materials,’ says Torfs, who brought cream-coloured textiles, handpicked ceramics offering sparks of colour, and pendant lighting in soft metallic hues. All of these are reflected in the curved windows that bring the misty, autumnal colours of the forest beyond into each space. 

‘All items are handpicked, even the little pieces,’ says Mertens. ‘We buy things all over the world from Paris to Marrakech  – it’s really a design for a home.’ The pair even use their own home as an inventory for all the objects they use in their projects. The effect is welcoming, cosy and human.

Yet, why associate comfort with a home, and discomfort with an office, we wonder? Ingrained in our associations with work is a whole history of unhealthy practices, from strip lighting and coffee-stained carpets, to unnecessary objects stuffed into filing cabinets.

It was a similarly bad experience that motivated Geeraets to start Fosbury & Sons. ‘I’ve worked for large organisations, I drank my coffee everyday from a plastic cup, surrounded by clutter. It wasn’t an environment where I could find a piece of mind – and that’s what you need from an office. You have to solve problems, you have to have clarity and be on top of things. I started to wonder, why does the office look like this?’

While researching for the space, Geeraets and van Gool travelled to many different cities looking at examples of office spaces, and staying at hotels along the way: ‘What we found in hotel lobbys was much closer to what we wanted than what we found in the offices we were looking at,’ says van Gool.

Fosbury & Sons’ concept explores a much bigger question of how good design can reflect company values: ‘How can you motivate your people in the best way? Is it through rules or can you help them grow by letting them be who they are, and support them, giving them the best surroundings they can have in a human way,’ says Geeraets.

The forward-thinking duo put these values into practice in their own company that operates out of their Antwerp space (opened in 2016) and has gone from strength to strength, expanding to open up even more desk space. ‘We don’t tell people what to do, because they know best. A lot of companies are still in a state of command and control, we look more to trust and results, and support.’

They find that their Fosbury & Sons tenants also share these common values: ‘It’s not what you do, or the type of company you are, it’s the people who are important,' says van Gool. ‘They are all eager to do what they do, the best they can.’

Geeraets brings up the most important and overlooked factor needed in the work day – rest. ‘Our brains can’t function straight for eight hours. We try to make people even more productive.’ Instead of just adding the ‘chill corner’ into an office filled with bright lights and hard surfaces, Fosbury & Sons has rethought the whole typology of office design from the ground up.

It all sounds a bit too good to be true. Might you feel a bit too relaxed at Fosbury & Sons Boitsfort? No, says Geeraets: ‘It’s not only the environment that determines how you work, it’s the colleagues, it’s the deadline. We aren’t creating a home, the need is a place where people feel good.’

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Fosbury & Sons website and the Going East website

New York’s Independent Art Fair is making another return to bustling Brussels for a weekend of radical art overseen by guest curator Vincent Honoré. Shaking up the compartmentalised fair model, Independent favours a fluid blend of traditional work, live arts and a bounteous dose of design. Sixty galleries, museums, and non-profit organisations will congregate in the 50,000 sq ft, five-storey Vanderborght building with an emphasis on a communal ‘visitor experience’. Blue-chip and emerging galleries sit side by side, dissolving art market airs to garner unconstrained and authentic dialogues. In anticipation of this weekend of showstopping art and performances, we’ve curated our own top tips for fairgoers to see between 8-11 November.
  
Solo booths by emerging artists
Independent has a track record of bringing the talent of tomorrow to the fore. This year, a number of galleries are emphasis on their catalogue of promising young creatives. The paintings, drawings and collages of Belgian artist Nel Aerts seem whimsical and witty, yet under their vibrant, cartooned façade, her figures – many of them self-portraits – harbour feelings of helplessness, immobility and introspection. Carl Freedman Gallery presents a line up of new work by the artist involving crudely executed cut out forms – an illusion of naivety not to be taken at surface value.

Over in Joseph Tang’s territory, French artist Julie Béna will grip spectators with her literature, theatre and popular culture-infused practice. A series of obscure objects in the gallery’s space will entice visitors down to the ground floor where Béna will stage an impassioned recital, which subsumes audiences in an obscure fictional realm. Through an intricate, tenacious embroidery technique, f.marquespenteado’s work combines clothing, accessories, books and found objects. For the artist’s solo show for Mendes Wood DM gallery, the booth is converted into an alpine lodge for Men in Trouble. Portraits of fictional male characters (each with their own backstory) are hand-embroidered on tennis rackets.
 
Collectible design, furniture by artists, and functional artworks
This year, the fair inaugurates a fresh design-led section. This will straddle the boundaries between craft, collectible design and furniture to add another unconventional dimension to the format. New York gallery Friedman Benda has opted to show two starkly juxtaposed artists under its ‘international and multi-generational’ programme. Lebanese designer Najla El Zein’s minimalist Distortion collection comprises a cluster of concrete seating configurations. These soft, seamless mounds obstruct functionality while alluding to anthropomorphism and femininity.

Andile Dyalvane’s complex ceramic work is the antidote to minimalism. The South African artist draws on his roots in the Xhosa culture and rural Eastern Cape, combining this with tales of everyday urban experiences in Cape Town. As collaborative partners this year, Nottingham Contemporary and Whitechapel Gallery exclusively debut an array of new work at the fair. This includes vivacious woven blankets by Francis Upritchard and whimsical ‘ceramic sandwiches’ by Jesse Wine. Whitechapel Gallery will separately present a range of leading contemporary artists including Elmgreen & Dragset, Emma Hart, Huma Bhabha and Ulla von Brandenburg.
  
Performances
With performance art expert Vincent Honoré at the helm, the entire ground floor or ‘nerve centre’ of the Vanderborght building will be in the hands of a diverse spread of conversation, film, music and live, time-based work. At Independent, visitors are not longer merely idle spectators, but active partakers. On the brink of premiering Vessel Orchestra for The Met Breuer next year, Oliver Beer is unveiling another new performance work at Independent. Here, two performers recount their earliest musical memories using their bodies, creating radical musical timbres. Locking mouths, they sing through each other’s facial cavities, fused in a single ‘hybrid voice.’ (This is a performance reminiscent of Marina Abramović and Ulay’s Breathing In, Breathing Out of 1977 in which two artists; mouths together inhale only the other’s exhalation.)

Adam Christensen – or ‘Madam’ as he’s otherwise known during his cabaret-esque performances – will serenade visitors with fragmented biographical love stories, all accompanied by an accordion. This is a performance that’s bound to induce an emotive response, not least due to Christensen’s silvery vocal capabilities. Other live artwork will be perfomed by Mathilde Fernandez, Ola Maciejewska, Cecilia Bengolea, David Sherry and Naama Tsabar.
  

Historical mavericks
The kingpins of 20th-century art will jostle for centre stage in a timely discourse between American and European art. Listening beyond the deafening cacophony of the market, a collection of galleries hail quality over quantity to provide a critical footing for the wider fair. Hervé Bize will emphasise the divergent voices of the 1980s in Europe and the US, including a Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Item (1987), a painting aired for the first time in an exhibition context since its recent release from a private collection. ‘We put forward precisely our identity, our constant focus on art beyond categorisation,’ Bize reflects.

‘Reproductively Yours: Pop & Publicity’ will be the umbrella theme for New York gallery Alden Projects. ‘Bad taste’ makes for a great assemblage of work in this nostalgic look back at the pioneers who made pop art crack, and the critics who dubbed it a curse. British conceptual photographer John Hilliard will dominate the walls of London-based Richard Saltoun’s booth focusing on seminal works created between 1969-1977. These include Hilliard’s 765 Paper Balls (above) which was originally conceived as a sculpture before the artist realised it made a far better photograph. Hilliard’s process involves drawing up diagrams of each composition before the image exists resulting in a tangibility the artist admires in other mediums like painting. §

INFORMATION

Independent Brussels 2018 runs from 9-11 November. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Bâtiment Vanderborght
Schildknaapstraat
50 rue de l’Ecuyer
1000 Brussels

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‘America is without a doubt on a precipice; we are in a red state,’ says Sterling Ruby, the Los Angeles-based artist known for his works made from a never-ending range of media that have dangled from the ceilings of galleries and protruded into the public space at biennials around the world. At his latest two-venue exhibition, opened at his long-time dealer Xavier Hufkens’ spaces in Brussels, red is the dominant colour.

In ‘DRFTRS’, he presents recent works from a series of collages that began back in 2012, and at ‘WIDW’, (Ruby’s acronym for window) he shows a series of oil paintings. ‘The colour red has always played a dominant “psychological” role in my colour choices,’ Ruby reflects, but ‘in these new paintings, the primordial red paint is thick, visceral, volcanic. Perhaps I have been painting with an apocalyptic observation in tow.’

In the US today, no colour is more divisive and political – and in Ruby’s work America, its pop culture, politics and its position in the world, is never far from the surface. ‘It has always been an undercurrent in my work, and often attribute material and themes to a representation of America,’ he affirms.

The two venues present a dyadic perspective: while ‘DRFTRS’ looks out at the world, incorporating found imagery sourced from Ruby’s ever-growing personal archive of ‘things I am looking at or thinking about’ (including protest posters, horror films, orchids, poppies, skulls, snakeskins and prisons), at ‘WIDW’, the artist scavenged his material from his own studio, a process he has used in the past.

He has also reflected on art’s role in dealing with anxiety and the grim reality of past times. ‘I’ve been looking at a lot of German expressionist painters, Der Blaue Reiter group,’ Ruby explains. ‘My new paintings reveal how current events visually play themselves out in my mind. I see bars or windows.’

Are we on the outside of those bars, peeking in, or trapped behind them, staring out into the unknown? You’ll have to go and see the paintings to find their truths, embedded in the fractious layers of their canvases.

INFORMATION

‘DRFTRS’ and ‘WIDW’ are on view until 20 October. For more information, visit the Xavier Hufkens website

ADDRESS

Xavier Hufkens
6 and 107 rue St-Georges
St-Joorisstraat
1050 Brussels

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Leather goods sit alongside works of art at Delvaux’s new flagship store, Le 27, on Brussels’ Boulevard de Waterloo. Housed inside a grand townhouse, the store functions not only as a showcase for the Belgian leather brand’s collections, but also furniture and artworks from the 20th century to present day.

The museum-meets-store concept was conceived by Italian studio Vudafieri-Saverino Partners, who have worked on the Belgian leather brand’s stores since 2012, completing boutiques in Paris, London, Shanghai, Tokyo and Dubai.

‘Delvaux is the oldest luxury leather goods house in the world, founded nearly in the same period as when this building was built,’ explained the architects, who took care to preserve the Le 27 house’s original features. ‘They share the same elegance and attitude. The historical allure of the building has played an essential role to give us the opportunity to explore new languages between classic and modern.’

The space provided a spectacular canvas with its four-metre-high ceilings, grand staircase, elaborate mouldings, frescoes and art deco skylight.

On top of this, Vudafieri-Saverino Partners used fixtures and fittings to bring a contemporary edge. The grid-like wall displays, they explain, are conceived as abstract paintings whose design is a tribute to Mondrian's De Stijl artistic movement.

Furniture by 20th-century masters such as Jules Wabbes, Pieter de Bruyne, Renaat Braem, Emiel Veranneman pepper the space while an entire room is dedicated to pieces by contemporary Belgian designers such as Nathalie Dewez, Alain Berteau and Ben Storms.

Displayed between the ground and the first floor are a series of archival pigment prints by the Argentine artist Romina Ressia, and a collection of 20th-century Belgian pottery is displayed across walls and surfaces.

‘Designing a retail concept for a fashion brand is all about capturing its identity and values, and transferring it into a space concept, into colours, materials, volumes,’ reflect the designers.

‘Delvaux asked us to forge their first visual retail identity and then to evolve it according to the cultural reference of each space, town or country in which they opened a new boutique. Therefore we have to be even more careful and focused on those inner, core values, maintaining them while we change our visual language to incorporate a whole series of cultural references from different sources, aiming to make each shop a unique experience, new and memorable at same time.’ 

‘I have a strong credo that an exhibition must embody real objects,’ says curator Matthieu Poirier prefacing a walkthrough of ‘The Brutal Play’, in which works from Carl Andre, Donald Judd and Robert Morris occupy the Fondation CAB in Brussels. ‘These objects remind the viewers of their own bodies.’

The prolific contemporary curator who divides his time between the Belgian capital and Paris was given carte blanche by the non-profit contemporary art space (conceived by the ultra-private collector, Hubert Bonnet) to select works that bear witness to the visceral and material impact of minimalist forms. Even before arriving inside to the airy, 1930s-era warehouse converted by Olivier Dwek, visitors are confronted with a circle of inhospitable steel rebar erected by Karsten Födinger that obstructs the usual open entry. If not interactive, these works impose themselves through their volume and mass.

Which is not to say that that Poirier has selected them to make some highly formal statement, hence the show’s title. ‘We hear it as a game on brutalism, or else a play in the theatrical sense; and I like both those aspects because these sculptures take up space but they require that you move around them. They all imply free choreography on the part of the viewer; you’re not standing in front of a painting, you’re involved,’ he explains.

Visitors will quickly notice that the works are pretty much monochrome in nature. ‘There’s no makeup,’ he quips. ‘There is no pigment, as this is not about painting.’ As such, the overall statement feels coherent and elemental. The fact that a Demountable House (1944) from Jean Prouvé is permanently installed at the centre of the gallery establishes both a fixed point of departure and a decisive link between these structural works and architecture. ‘Another way to speak about minimalist sculpture is to put emphasis on the resonance between architecture and sculpture,’ Poirier confirms, noting how the genre began to emerge in the 1950s.

Accordingly, Roman Arch (2004) from Morris stands out as simultaneously symbolic and non-representational but can be appreciated simply by the way each oak block precariously remains in place. Andre’s 8 x 8 Cedar Solid comprising 64 blocks rising 90 cm high could delineate a small room or else just a cluster of tightly-packed monoliths.

He expresses considerable delight when showing off a series of small, freestanding blocky wood sculptures conceived by Rodchenko in 1920-21. Technically replicas, they have been accepted as originals. ‘That’s the logic of the artist — to make something that is essentially systematic,’ he says.

From here, it’s not a huge leap to the late German artist, Charlotte Posenenske, who Poirier considers a protagonist of this subject matter. Whereas her Square Tubes multiples appear deliberately disruptive within Prouvé’s house, her series of galvanised air ducts coexists with the gallery’s architecture when situated flush to the wall; and the contrast underscores Poirier’s own hand in shaping how visitors perceive differences in materiality – even when the artist source is the same.

Interestingly, he also makes a point to show the vulnerability of the objects. A sarcophagus that Kilian Rüthemann carved on site from a giant block of foam has been stationed outside on a small terrace since the start of the show. Whereas concrete is impenetrable to the elements, its porous composition soaks up rainwater and gradually discolours yet remains resilient.

Then there is V, Ramon Feller’s concrete slab weighing one tonne and shaped as the title suggests, which has been hoisted from the ground by steel cables that lead to an electric motor. Over the course of the show, it has been rising ever so slowly from the ground and is programmed to self-destruct, or break, on the closing day. The added kinetic element in addition to the motor’s subtle hum introduce one final dimension to a multi-dimensional show.

Imagine, if you can, the constant force the motor must fight to lift the piece so incrementally. ‘Here, you really get the sense of time slowing down,’ says Poirier. ‘Everything today is about acceleration; I like deceleration – and the idea that this exhibition takes you out of the world.’ Except, of course, this would be discounting the reality of gravity, which as this play’s anti-hero, seems to exert an even stronger presence in the midst of such assertive, timeless forms.

INFORMATION

‘The Brutal Play’ is on view until 26 May. For more information, visit the Fondation CAB website

ADDRESS

Fondation CAB
32-24 rue Borrens
1050 Brussels

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Business lounges might offer comfier seating, plenty of plug sockets and free pastries, but beyond these perks they rarely provide a feeling of true luxury. The Loft at Brussels Airport is a perfect example of this, kitted out as it is with functional, IKEA-like furniture that has more than a whiff of a Pret a Manger about it.

Not so the Lounge by Lexus, a brand new space adjoining The Loft. Designed by Fitch, this carefully executed brand extension could so easily have gone the obvious route – think stereotypically ‘masculine’ mahoganies and monogrammed textiles reminiscent of car interiors. Instead, the design team has created a light, luxe and interactive environment inspired by the Japanese concept of ‘omotenashi’ – hospitality catering to your guest’s every need.

The 700 sq m space is delineated by a variety of flooring: wood, marble and grey mosaic, which helps guide people through the various seating sections such as a central bar area where guests can help themselves to food and drink or cosy armchairs to relax in before a flight. The workstation, with its floating desk and high chairs is a clear contrast to the sofas, magazines and surround sound speakers in the homely ‘breakout room’.

For those with a long wait on their hands, there are impressive spa facilities including a huge shower with a ‘hammam’ option and LED lighting to set the mood. The private nap rooms are pretty special: a comfy bed and a ceiling of lights initiating the night sky, with a remote control to select a galaxy colourway. Before this, travellers may want to receive a surprisingly thorough and warming Shiatsu massage in one of the Panasonic ‘Real Pro Hot Stone’ chairs.

Lexus have largely steered clear of too much overt branding: of course there are hints throughout but it’s never overdone. You get the odd framed photographs and car models on shelving, a huge collage of mechanical parts (spray painted white) and the occasional discretely placed logo. These will all no doubt provide ‘Instagrammable’ moments to help spread the company’s lifestyle ethos to a wider audience.

The airport experience is all too often encumbered with boredom and fatigue, decked out with functional furniture that reflects the transient nature of these unavoidable places. The Lounge by Lexus has convenient, fun and welcoming features that will undoubtedly alleviate the stress and ennui of many a business class traveller.

INFORMATION

Lounge by Lexus can be used by business class travellers on Brussels Airlines and Star Alliance Airlines. For more information, visit the Lexus website

Michel Penneman, the architect behind the success of Brussels hotels such as Pantone and Yadoya, adds a more subtle hospitality concept to his name with the new Hygge hotel located just behind the high-end shopping area of Louiza.

Electing to sacrifice the number of hotel rooms for more sizeable communal spaces, Penneman, together with the Everland group, has created an atmosphere that reflects the fashionable concept of hygge – a Danish word that denotes the conscious creation of cosy environments in order to cultivate well being. ‘We created a universe conducive to relaxation, well-being and comfort, punctuated by creations of Scandinavian designers,' says Penneman, alluding to the furniture that populates the lobby and breakfast area, as well as the rooms themselves. 

The well-equipped rooms boast walk-in showers and blue-and-white bathroom tiling that adds personality.  There’s a simple but comprehensive breakfast, served in a space furnished with typical Scandinavian-style designs that emanate a relaxed, uncluttered sense of ease, given additional depth by the herringbone patterned wooden floor, classical high ceilings and original fireplace. 
 
‘As in Scandinavia,' Penneman adds, ‘in Brussels the weather is often cold and wet. We have made this hotel a vast, calm place with soft colours, lots of wood, furs and textiles.’

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Rue des Drapiers 31-33

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Brussels is home to a new design fair, Collectible – a show dedicated to 21st-century contemporary design. Under the curatorial helm of Maria Cristina Didero, Pascale Mussard, Jan Boelen and Wallpaper* brand and content director Tony Chambers, collectible wares will be presented across six floors of the light-filled Vanderborght building. Exhibitors include Brussels gallery Victor Hunt and ToolsGalerie Paris, designers Os ∆ Oos and Xavier Lust, and special projects from the likes of Van den Weghe and ABC Klubhuis, here’s our highlights to look out for…

Maniera Gallery

Last year, Paris gallery A1043 exhibited the furniture of Rei Kawakubo, the elusive visionary behind Comme des Garçons. At Collectible, Maniera gallery are inviting A1043 to present the conceptual pieces again, but this time within the architecture of Vanderborght, giving the futuristic furniture a whole new narrative.

Supergufram

The radical Italian design company Gufram will be displaying the collections of its spin-off brand Supergufram that launched last year. The limited-edition and often humorously designed pieces by Studio Job explore the borders between art and design while showing experimentation with materials like polyurethane.

KUF Studios

Founded by Kia Utzon-Frank, the multidisciplinary studio spans architectural cakes (KUFcakes) to dynamic shelving systems (KUFtwist). For Collectible, the Danish designer will be presenting brutalist flødeboller (classic Danish sweet treats) displayed atop new iterations of the KUFtwist shelving that will be made with cord instead of ribbon.

Os ∆ Oos

The Dutch design duo are bringing a set of their newest pieces to Collectible. Included is geometric lighting collection ‘Matrix’ (pictured) that is imbued with the studio’s material experimentation, and their play with form and function

Victor Hunt Gallery

The Belgian gallery will focus on the works of Maarten De Ceulaer, creating a contemporary space with many of the designer’s modular projects including the ‘Transformation’ series for Fendi and Design Miami (2012) and ‘Suitcases’ project that nods to the De Ceulaer’s passion for travel in a whimsical installation of leather pieces (pictured)

INFORMATION

Collectible is on view from 7-11 March. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Vanderborght
Rue de l'Ecuyer
1000 Bruxelles
Belgium

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A little known work by Christo will be a highlight of this year’s BRAFA, which opens in Brussels tomorrow. Three Store Fronts is one of series of works created in the 1960s, inspired by shop fronts in Paris and New York. Made from architectural scrap and hung with drapes, it first went on show at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven in 1965, and kick-started Christo’s career. Compared to the monumental and ambitious projects that have defined the artist’s career ever since, it is surprisingly modest.

‘I was very happy when BRAFA asked me to show this work; it has only ever been exhibited twice, and so few people have seen it,’ says Christo from his studio in New York’s Canal Street, where he has lived for the past 53 years. Like Show Cases and Store Fronts (additional works from the same period), it has been in his storage facility for years. ‘I am the biggest collector of my works,’ he says. ‘I use them as collateral to fund my large projects.’

Over the decades, these have included creating a walkway across an Italian lake, (Floating Piers, 2016), hanging a curtain between two Colorado mountain slopes (Valley Curtain, 1972), installing 7,503 fabric panels in New York’s Central Park (The Gates, 2003) and perhaps, most famously, wrapping the Reichstag in Berlin in a silvery fabric (Wrapped Reichstag, 1995). So successful has the 82-year-old artist been at injecting buildings and landscapes with dramatic aesthetic interventions, each project drawing millions of visitors, that Christo is one of the world’s most celebrated living artists.

‘The most important, and difficult, part of any project is getting permissions. I’ve had more failures than successes; 23 projects have been realised, 37 turned down.’ His next work, The Mastaba, is a flat-topped pyramid made from barrels in the Abu Dhabi desert. It has been in the pipeline for 40 years.

‘In 1979 (my late wife) Jeanne-Claude and I went to Abu Dhabi, which was still a new country. We didn’t even know where it was! We found a site, which is in the middle of the Empty Quarter, populated by high dunes and white gazelles.’ Stretching to 150m high and 225m deep, The Mastaba will be the world’s largest sculpture and take three years to build.

‘We never know how to do a project when we start; we have to experience real winds, real water, real sunlight. These can’t be mimicked by computer,’ says Christo, who is still negotiating permissions. Will it happen? ‘I am not giving up,’ he claims, ‘but everything is more difficult now. The world is a different place.’

INFORMATION

BRAFA runs from 26 January – 4 February. For more information, visit the BRAFA website and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude website

ADDRESS

Tour & Taxis
Avenue du Port 86C
1000 Brussels

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With its peaceful tsuboniwa – a traditional Japanese courtyard garden with a small stone and bamboo fountain – hidden away on the lower ground floor, planted with bamboo, red maple trees and bryophyta moss, Yadoya, in the North quarter of Brussels, is evidence of the Belgian capital’s ability to cultivate unexpected little pockets of character.

The hotel, modelled and named after a typical Japanese hostel, is on a busy road near an area of high-rise office blocks. But as can be expected of a hospitality concept that means to immerse visitors into the Japanese universe, once inside the wood and glass doors, the outside world quietens. 

The hotel’s architect Michel Penneman is an expert at creating intimate worlds to retreat into. Yadoya consolidates his fascination with Japan in a partnership with hotelier Everland. 

Penneman honours the Japanese codes truthfully: muted and warm light flows downward from wall lamps, maple wooden floors give an airy impression, green accented walls and bedsheets teamed with grey furniture form a soothing palette. One suite, facing the inner courtyard garden, increases the Japanese caliber one more notch with its tatami-inspired floor-level bed. 

The 73-room hotel boasts maple wood furniture by the Belgian-Japanese interior and product designer Jun Gobron, whose Yado chair will be put into production by Belgian firm De Zetel. Gobron’s round tables are finished off with an authentic Japanese coin in the centre, gifted by the Japanese ambassador to Belgium. 

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Boulevard d'Anvers 32-33

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There’s nary an Anish Kapoor to be found at the 35th edition of Art Brussels. It’s an unusual observation for such an established fixture on the art fair calendar – but Art Brussels has proven itself to be no ordinary fair. With only a handful of blue-chip galleries present, Art Brussels has carved out a role as one of Europe’s leading discovery fairs, attracting collectors from countries further afield, including Australia and Turkey.

Bolstered by a fresh new visual identity by Base Design, Art Brussels has returned to the sun-drenched confines of an early 20th century customs house for the second year running. The quietly opulent Tour & Taxis building lends itself well to an art fair, eschewing the traditionally claustrophobic setting of a convention centre.

Bringing together 144 galleries from 28 countries, this year’s edition sees a particularly strong outing from exhibitors in the Discovery section, which spotlights recently created work from lesser-known artists, including Erika Hock (Cosar HMT), Amadou Sanogo (Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery), and Jean Denant (Galerie Anne de Villepoix).

In the main fair, Berlin-based Jahn and Jahn presents a particularly memorable diptych by Thomas Arnolds, while Cortesi pays homage to the square with works by Gianfranco Pardi, Enrico Castellani, and more. Dedicated to art from 1917 to 1987, the Rediscovery section brings under-recognised and forgotten artists to the fore, including Ryuji Tanaka (Axel Vervoordt Gallery) and José Pedro Costigliolo (Galería de las Misiones).

There’s also an emphasis on individual presentations, with 15 galleries including Xavier Hufkens and Meessen De Cleroq presenting a single artist in the SOLO section. Other notable SOLO highlights include New York artist Steve Gianakos’ twisted cartoons, staged by Paris-based Semiose; Josh Sperling at Brussels gallery Sorry We’re Closed; and a phenomenal display of Niki de Saint Phalle by Galerie Mitterand. Meanwhile, Benoît Maire – shown by Meessen de Clercq – scooped this year’s SOLO Prize, worth €10,000.

Elsewhere, exhibition maker Jens Hoffmann and curator/critic Piper Marshall have pieced together the fair’s flagship project, a sort of Wunderkammer of 75 artists’ mementos and personal curios. Jenny Holzer lured us in with her morbidly beautiful iron-meat hook; Joseph Kosuth shared a printed card signed by Hillary Clinton as a thank-you – a reminder, he says, ‘of all that we lost in the US presidential election’.

At the Belfius Lounge, visitors can peruse a selection of works from the Belfius Art Collection, which comprises entirely Belgian artists. There’s also a taster of the Belgian Pavilion ahead of the Venice Biennale, as artist Dirk Braeckman presents a large range of works from his Sisyphus (2005) series.

With 260 material fairs on the art world’s calendar each year – virtual editions notwithstanding – the scene is crowded. It may not be as bombastically blue-chip as Basel, but Art Brussels is, quite refreshingly, a fair that doesn’t leave you indifferent.

INFORMATION

Art Brussels runs from 21–23 April. For more information, visit the Art Brussels website

ADDRESS

Tour & Taxis
Avenue du Port 86C
1000 Brussels

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It was seeing old photographs of fascist-era Roman statues commissioned by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in the early 1930s with the hope that Rome would host the 1944 Summer Olympics (London ended up winning the bid, but the games were cancelled due to World War II) and the 1942 World’s Fair – which was also cancelled – that caused artist Richard Phillips to pay a visit to Palazzo della Civiltà and Foro Italico when he was in Rome a few years ago. The artist took photos of the statues with his iPhone for his own reference. 'I realised that there was great potential, and the power of these really decidedly anti-modernist sculptures was an appropriate subject for painting at this moment in time,' said Phillips.

Phillips removed the backgrounds of the images, set the tone in a certain contrast and applied a new method of painting which he had been working on, a departure from the hyperrealist portraits he had become known for. The paintings, along with another series that used Cy Twombly’s last paintings as a starting point, are the subject of a recently opened exhibition at Almine Rech Gallery in Brussels.

The artist's new process involves a number of meticulous steps where a digital image is printed on to an adhesive vinyl paper that forms a sticker that gets stuck on the canvas. Then, with a scalpel the vinyl surface is cut. Using shades from a gradient colour study that he created, Phillips then paints another layer, removing the vinyl strips to reveal the unpainted gessoed canvas. Phillips basically works in cycles to removes and apply tape, and additional layers of colour. The result is a work that tricks the viewer into thinking that a print has been applied to the canvas, when it was actually painted by hand.

Phillips used detail shots from catalogues as the starting point for his Cy Twombly series. 'The catalogues for abstract painting, and Cy in particular, they’ll do full page bleeds of a portion of the painting that shows the master stroke in order to get you closer to how the paintings really are in scale,' said Phillips, who reconstructed the elements from Twombly’s Roman Salalah and Final paintings onto raw gessoed canvases using a similar method as his other paintings. 'They’re kind of a memento mori of that final example of masterful expressionist painting in a sense,' said Phillips.

INFORMATION

'Richard Phillips' is on view until 25 Feburary 2017. For more information, visit the Almine Rech Gallery website

ADDRESS

Almine Rech Gallery
Abdijstraat 20
Rue de l’Abbaye
1050 Brussels

Husband-and-wife artist duo Mark Barrow and Sarah Parke unveil their latest multimedia project, ’Matter of Time’, at Independent Régence in Brussels, which includes this short video work

Earlier this month the husband-and-wife artist duo of Mark Barrow and Sarah Parke unveiled their latest multimedia project, 'Matter of Time', at Independent Régence in Brussels. 'The show began by thinking about the laborious nature of our process,' says Barrow, a painter, who has been known to meticulously stipple the canvases his textile-maker wife weaves from plain and coloured Belgian linen. For the Brussels exhibition they are showing a new selection of seven of their Reweaves, a suite of canvases which debuted last December at New York's Elizabeth Dee Gallery and are created by staining plain linen, which is then dethreaded and rewoven into two paintings (one warp-derived; the other weft-derived) with completely new patterns.

'It is sort of a new model, I can't think of any precedent in painting,' says Barrow, noting two of the new paintings were shown reflected around a column, while another pair were shown on opposite walls from each other. 'It seems like it could relate to things like commingled particles – two particles that are linked, despite being separated by space/distance – or inflationary theory, a hypothesis as to why the universe is uniform, or that one point the universe rapidly expanded so disparate parts of the universe now are made up of the same stuff because they used to be close together.'

In addition to these labour- and conceptually-intensive works, the Queens-based couple has also created a new series of their Finger Paintings, featuring Barrow's iPad strokes that follow the individual threads of Parke's weavings. These comprise a site-specific installation with woven coloured films on the gallery's massive skylight, and an accompanying animation based on imagery of a star that exploded over 20,000 years ago, and captured by the Hubble telescope in the early noughties. Barrow and Parke are also debuting a duet of canvases that mark an extrapolation of the Reweaves. Titled Phase I and Phase II, the new paint-free works are made from fabric that is woven, then cut into shapes and sewn together.

'We had made some sewn paintings like this for our last show, but using only CMYK coloured thread,' says Barrow of the ongoing series, which features a circular compositional motif. 'These don't have that restriction. The compositions are meant to be reminiscent of planets or moons and are meant to draw attention to the difference between the works. How the circles change or move or seem to pass over each other from work to work.'

As for the Hubble imagery, or what Barrow calls 'a stand-in for the Big Bang', the couple wasn't sure when and where they started thinking about the exploding star – but the 12-second looping video of the explosion acts as a translation of sorts that measures 'the distance the light had to travel into pixels spreading across a screen – measuring time pictorially', he says. 'This set up an interesting dichotomy with the paintings, which also literally count out my and Sarah's time, thread by thread and brushstroke by brushstroke. So the exhibition consists of these objects that measure out time and is about both nothing and everything at the same time. Nothing in the sense that it is like busywork, just [the] counting of time. And everything in the sense that time is this construct which is how we relate to everything in a vast universe that is just moving along.'

Meanwhile, the skylight installation is based on one of the frames from the video, freezing a single moment from the celestial explosion and rendering it in six-inch multi-coloured film squares. 'It's interesting to think of the possibility of light from the actual event still reaching us and filtering through skylight,' says Barrow. 'Also to think about the coloured light refracting off things and this pixelated image being put back into the universe and floating around the ether somewhere. The window piece was also fortunate [in] that it was on a large window that was above you when you walked into the gallery. So it served as a nice intermediary between the actual sky and the video. If you can imagine this cosmic event being funneled down and ending up on a tiny iPad on the wall.'

INFORMATION

'Mark Barrow: Matter of Time' is on view until 22 October. For more information, visit the Independent Régence website

ADDRESS

Independent Régence
Rue de la Régence 67
1000 Brussels

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The latest phase in the ongoing revival of Brussels’ Bozar Centre for Fine Arts is the launch of its street-facing café, Victor.

Once again led by Gent-based Robbrecht and Daem - also behind the overhaul of the building’s Henri Le Boeuf concert hall in 2015 - the firm has applied a similar marriage of architecture and interior design to the sleek space that frequently references and incorporates both the Belgian’s distinct style and the centre’s original art deco features. Case in point, circular chandeliers, created for Victor Horta, the architect who designed the building in 1928, and after whom the restaurant is named, are merged with dark-green granite counters and banquette seating, that both smoothly harmonise with the green linoleums and natural stone introduced to the space by Horta himself.

Previously home to Bozar’s bookshop and a broadcasting studio, the café has now been opened up into a larger, airier space. Three hand-embroidered curtains designed by artist Valérie Mannaerts dramatically section the café, clearly marking each area and imparting a sense of mystery to every corner. Entitled ‘Pleasure in Making (Curtain for Bozar)’, the drapes feature a different pattern on each side, introducing an exciting medley of shape, colour and spontaneity into the room. It’s a grand experience and an apt backdrop for a leisurely coffee or gluten-free dessert following one of Bozar’s many cultural events. 

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Rue Ravensteinstraat 23

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We have become so used to looking at art from an analytical viewpoint – searching for the artist's philosophy, methodology, identity and intent – that we often forget, or deliberately neglect, the principal function of art. Before the modern era, art served primarily to decorate architecture and spaces in order to make life richer and more joyful. As Asad Raza, artistic director of Villa Empain in Brussels, reminds us, ‘Being pleasing to the eyes is a deeper matter than one sometimes thinks.’

Now, in a new exhibition at the villa, co-curated with Tino Sehgal and Dorothea von Hantelmann, "Decor" takes a look at the decorative function of modern and contemporary art and its part in simply being a beautiful component of an environment. An important part of art deco and the architectural heritage of Brussels, Villa Empain was originally designed by Swiss architecture master Michel Polak in 1934 and was acquired by the Lebanese-Armenian Boghossian Foundation, which in 2006 decided to turn it into an art platform.

Art deco refers to arts that are stitched into all different aspects of life. ‘My goal is to bring the art exhibition closer to life, for the villa to be seen more as an inhabited house than a container for objects. I want to do exhibitions that will really work with the building,' says Raza, 'The idea for this show, 'Decor', is that we go with works that don’t need to be the centre of attention, dominating all the meaning of the room – but at the same time are not afraid to decorate the space.’

Given that most of the artists today work on the contrary – to create works to be centre stage – the curators gave the exhibitors a chance to think and respond from a different perspective. Four artists have been commissioned to create new works for the show – Daniel Buren covered up windows on the back side of the villa with colourful squares; Pierre Huyghe is showing his narrated aquarium Cambrian Explosion 14; Waqas Khan’s wall mural installation and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s Chambre (L’inhumaine) are sited on the first floor. On top of that, works from Carl Andre, Marcel Broodthaers, Latifa Echakhch, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Milena Muzquiz and Rosemarie Trockel have also been brought to the show.

‘These works hold the relationship between viewers and the villa; they bring you close to the villa as much as to the works themselves,’ Raza says.

INFORMATION

’Decor’ is on view until 29 January 2017. For more information, visit the Villa Empain website

ADDRESS

Villa Empain
Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 67
1000 Brussels

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The design and fashion crew are crowding the newly opened Jam Hotel in the increasingly gentrified Janson corner of Brussels. The former St Luc School of Design has received a total makeover from local hotel-hero Jean-Micheal André (Le Berger, Chelton and Château de la Poste) and his architect accomplice Olivia Gustot.

There is plenty to celebrate in the secluded top floor bar and terrace or when catching the late evening sunshine from the adjacent roof top pool, the only one in the Belgian capital. Furniture-maker turned interior architect Lionel Jadot sets a bold tone at the entrance with a daring Constructivist approach of sculptural concrete that veers towards the collage-like Merzbau vision of Kurt Schwitters. Jadot further develops this approach with decorative ply sheeting painted in a Mondrian-esque colour palette and ingenious bespoke pendant lamps. Here in the street level bar and Italian restaurant an excellent assortment of antipasta, primi and pizzas are served. 

In a category disrupting move the 78-room hotel includes several three and 4 double-bed rooms and the Giga-Room, an 18-bed dormitory.  Guest rooms interiors adopt a comfy yet back-to-basics approach with poured concrete floors, untreated wood and exposed electrical conduit. Layered on this are cosy Moroccan textiles, reclaimed lamps and seating, fluffy sheepskin rugs and miniature cacti in abundance.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

132 Chaussée de Charleroi

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As in New York, the Independent art fair's Brussels edition looked to complement the city's buzzing art scene, strategically choosing the week(end) of Art Brussels for the inaugural iteration of its trademark fair model on European soil.

The team chanced upon the 50,000 sq ft Vanderborght building, a former department store in the heart of the city. 'We had the extraordinary fortune of this amazing space, right in the centre, with a wonderful architecture that’s almost perfect for presenting art,' explains creative advisor Matthew Higgs about the six-floor structure, replete with a glass façade and glass-walled atrium that allowed natural light to emphasise the building’s transparencies.

On the ground floor, the progressive concept became immediately clear: New York powerhouse David Zwirner rubbed shoulders with the not-for-profit White Columns, who in turn neighboured with Delmes & Zander, a gallery based in Cologne and Berlin that focuses on outsider art. 'What’s important to us is that every kind of gallery is represented,' notes Higgs. 'We make sure there is no hierarchy – a wealthy gallery doesn’t take precedence over a smaller project. At a lot of fairs, the younger galleries are all together; the blue chip galleries are all together. We’re interested in trying to dissolve that.'

It made for a diverse viewing experience that, after getting a sense of the set-up, was conducive to discussions on transitions and juxtapositions. Carlier | Gebauer placed Laure Prouvost’s monochrome slogan paintings together with Tarik Kiswanson's fine sculptures, creating a tension between dark, heavy words and lightweight steel. Elsewhere, Kasper Bosmans’ wayward work in media ranging from silver-plated bronze to gouache and pencil in wood, showcased his unfettered ability to create at Marc Foxx Gallery. 

'You get really interesting dialogues between individual artworks, which you wouldn’t with a more conventionally structured fair,' Higgs concludes. 'There has been a great response. Hopefully it’s a dialogue that will continue.'

INFORMATION

Independent Brussels is on view until 28 May. For more information, visit the Independent website

Photography: Isabelle Arthuis. Courtesy Independent

ADDRESS

Vanderborght building
Schildknaapstraat 50
Rue de l’Ecuyer
1000 Brussels

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Art Brussels’ 34th edition signaled something of a turning point – a deepening of the contemporary art fair’s distinctive character, brought about by the move to Tour & Taxis, a former customs warehouse, and the decision to reduce the size of the fair by 50 galleries, down to 141. This resulted in renewed, respectful viewing conditions that allowed northern light to flow into the Tom Postma-designed space.

But departing artistic director Katerina Gregos and managing director Anne Vierstraete also streamlined the fair’s offering in terms of content by increasing the proportion of galleries in the ‘Discovery’ section. 'Most fairs place blue chip galleries at the entrance,' said Vierstraete. 'We turn things around: the first thing you experience is the experimental, young artists with work produced between 2013 and 2016; artists who haven’t reached the international market yet.'

Art Brussels steered the conversation even more towards the discovery of exciting talent by adding a new section, ‘Rediscovery’, in which a number of artists from the historical avant-garde were identified, that had previously been overlooked or forgotten. Standout presentations included Galerie Daniel Templon’s focus on the American Jules Olitski, whose early spray painting technique explored the disembodiment of colour. The work of Japanese Yuko Nasaka at Axel Vervoordt had a similar subdued quality that, with its references to the moon, was almost mystical in execution.

Twenty-four galleries participated in the 'Solo' section this year. Sammy Baloji, the Congolese artist who represented Belgium in Venice last year, stood out with a visceral installation that combined geometrical patterns on skin and copper with performance.

'Quixotic', a word Gregos used to describe the fair, could also be applied to ‘Cabinet d’Amis: The Accidental Collection of Jan Hoet’, a selection of 200 works from the legendarily idiosyncratic Ghent curator who passed away in 2014. Shown in a diorama designed by Richard Venlet, it surrounded the viewer with art much in the same way Hoet immersed himself in the world of the artists he championed. 'The social aspect of art predominated for him,' reminisces his son, Jan Hoet Jr. 'Though part of these works was acquired, he never had the ambition to become an art collector. He simply busied himself with art. The artists, to him, were more important than their finished products.'

That attitude can be extrapolated to Art Brussels as a place that attracts collectors who are not just interested in acquiring art for monetary value, but who enjoy what this fair does best: bolstering discovery.

INFORMATION

Art Brussels ran from 22–24 April. For more information, visit the Art Brussels website

Photography courtesy Art Brussels

ADDRESS

Tour & Taxis
Avenue du Port 86c
B-1000 Brussels

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Despite the fact that Charles and Ray Eames practiced photography throughout their lives, the pictures they took have always been stuck in the shadow of the duo’s much-celebrated furniture, architecture and film projects. Determined to bring these photographs into the spotlight, independent curator Alexandra Midal took a trip to LA to sift through the Eames’ photography archive – a vast collection that totals 750,000 slides. Following her research, in 2013 she put together an exhibition in Milan titled ‘Re-Think the Eames’ that showcased 700 of their previously unseen photographs.

Now, three years on, Midal is revisiting the photographs, this time focusing upon a particular series titled Movie Sets that Charles Eames placed into a montage sequence for a lecture in 1971. The photographs were taken between 1951 and 1970 on the film sets of Charles’ good friend, director Billy Wilder. Bonding over their mutual love of contemporary design, the Eames and the Wilders became firm friends early on. ‘You don’t go to watch Billy shoot to learn how make a picture,’ Eames once said, ‘but to learn how to write an editorial, how to make a chair, how to make a piece of furniture.’

Now, all 240 of the previously unknown and unpublished Movie Sets photographs are being presented in a new show called ‘Eames & Hollywood’ that opens today at the Art & Design Atomium Museum in Brussels – the first temporary show that has ever been hosted at the venue. Curated by Midal with the support of the Eames Foundation, the show provides a glimpse into the world of the Eames and their own very unique way of looking at the world.

From technicians clambering over scaffolds to lighting rigs and cameras, as well as the odd glimpse of a Hollywood star, the photographs are displayed backlit across two long walls, supported by a dramatic timber scenography-inspired set designed by Adrien Rovero.

‘What matters so much for the Eames was not the actresses or actors or the stars. Absolutely not,’ says Midal in reference to the exhibition’s set design. ‘What matters to them is the technicians, the extras, the make-up artist, the machinery, the different apparatus; it’s not really the technique but the way the cinema is constructed.’

‘As kids we would see these slideshows in the office all the time and we knew they were special,’ recalls Eames Demetrios, Ray and Charles’ grandson and director of the Eames office. 'What’s so compelling about them is that although they’re nostalgic, they’re actually very contemporary in form and in the way you experience them. So to me it was thrilling to see the exhibition come together and to begin the process of getting them appreciated.’

INFORMATION

’Eames & Hollywood’ is on view until 4 September. For more information, visit the Art & Design Atomium Museum’s website

Photography courtesy Eames Office and ADAM, 2016

ADDRESS

Art & Design Atomium Museum
Trade Mart Brussels
Belgiëplein 1
Brussels

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Staden-based brand Obumex knows what it takes to create a sophisticated and functional home. So when we heard that the interiors specialist is launching their updated flagship store in the heart of Brussels, we couldn't help but to sit up and take notice.

The company's new space offers ample inspiration, with offerings staged within different thematic groupings and laid out across the showroom's 250 sq m. The ground floor hosts the ‘Objects of Collection Particuliere’, a luxurious series of designer furnishings by Jérôme Aumont. Adjacent to this is the company's offices, including a set of carefully selected Interstuhl office chairs, which are beautifully aligned to the company's ‘urban and contemporary’ style.

Towards the rear of this level, visitors are greeted by a commanding Emperador Black natural stone staircase, leading to the upper floor. Nearby, the third section of the ground floor is home to a seating area equipped with sofa, library and a set of saloon tables, courtesy of Moinard. A family kitchen area designed by the in-house designer team at Obumex features the company's own tap, a series of light coloured, structured cupboard doors, and a second dose of Emperador stone.

Moving up, the store's elegantly informal first floor loft area is tucked underneath the building's wooden trusses. It comes furnished with Vitra and Knoll furniture and enveloped in a calming colour and material pallette.

Showcasing the extensive Obumex portfolio of interior offerings, this showroom creates a gesamtkunstwerk of style, all conveniently located under one roof.

INFORMATION

For more information on Obumex visit the website

Photography: Annick Vernimmen

ADDRESS

Obumex Flagship Store Brussels
Waterloolaan 27
1000, Brussels
Belguim

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