Brussels Art Guide - December

I.

Exhibition: Jean Glibert. Peintre en bâtiment
Artist:   Jean Glibert
Venue: Bozar
Dates:  Until January 7th, 2018

Since the late 1960s the painter Jean Glibert (Brussels, 1938) has pursued a creative logic in his work that is close to that of the architect. From the method of finalizing the designs through to completion and reception by the client, his work displays the same principal characteristics. Like an architect, he too works on the constructive image of the environment. Push and pull, stresses and rhythms… are all present in his work. 

II.

Exhibition: Gilbert & George, The beard pictures
Artists:  Gilbert & George
Venue: Albert Baronian Gallery
Dates: Until December 23rd, 2017

Albert Baronian exclusivley presents in Belgium, Gilbert & George's very last series of works. This production approaches with humor and impertinence the phenomenon of beard as a sign of the times.

III.

Exhibition: Paul Wackers, Parts of everything that are pieces of everything are all around us
Artist:  Paul Wackers
Venue: Alice Gallery
Dates: Until January 26th, 2018

In these paintings of shelves, windows, and interior landscapes, forms range from non-representational layers of abstract paint to discernible objects. While Wackers creates an illusionistic construction of space with subtle angles and perspectival lines defining depth, a physical dimensionality is built through varying levels of paint application.  

Take a tour with Jacinthe in Brussels to discover more!
 

Insider Tips for Collecting Contemporary Art

Our local guide in Brussels, Jacinthe Gigou, does not consider herself a collector and yet she has many insights about finding and purchasing art that uplifts and inspires. Explore the pieces she has personally selected to surround herself with and learn why they are significant to her. 

Image: © Morgane Delfosse

What is your personal philosophy when it comes to collecting art for yourself?

I am not a collector, I just like to have some pieces around me in my daily life. I have always been fascinated by art, even more so by artists. Owning one of their pieces also evokes for me their personality or a memory shared with them. Art uplifts and inspires me.

Can you tell us about one of your favorite pieces you have collected?

There are several I like a lot. They often touch on themes of time and disappearance. 

1. I like vanities and their representations, making permanent something ephemeral. The graffiti artist Steve Locatelli, from Antwerp, paints skulls and crossbones more than anything else. This one almost taunts us with its smile, but it is brightened up by the vivid colours and the roses that surround it and comprise it. I think it is beautiful, it calms my fears, haha!

Work by Steve Locatelli. Image © Morgane Delfosse

2. Here is a piece by Léopoldine Roux, from Brussels, who often bases her work on old documents, in this case a postcard of a forest in Beirut onto which she has painted a host of coloured dots. It has a strange beauty; the perspective makes it almost architectural. 

Work by Léopoldine Roux. Image: © Morgane Delfosse

3. Piotr has a way of depicting skies and nature which evokes the great Classical painters for me. The materials he paints on can be very unusual everyday things, in this case a vinyl record painted on one side.

Work by Piotr. Image: © Morgane Delfosse

4. This ceramic piece by Evor, from Nantes, is a sort of neo-rock, somewhere between a meteorite and an organic shape. I love ceramics because it reveals the void.

Work by Evor. Image: © Morgane Delfosse

5. This photo by Michel François, from Brussels, shows a detail of a book being passed from one hand to another. It was taken in Cuba in the aftermath of a hurricane. The hurricane’s victims are hurriedly recovering some of their belongings amid the wreckage of their homes. Saving a book is a very powerful symbol.

Work by Michel François. Image: © Morgane Delfosse

What is your advice for other contemporary art collectors today?

Follow young artists and creators.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series with our other local guides.

Take a tour with Jacinthe to learn more about her taste and contemporary art in Brussels!

Brussels Art Guide - October

I.

Exhibition title: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Urban Projects
Artists:  Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Venue: ING Art Center
Dates:  October 25th, 2017 to February 25th, 2018

To evoke a number of urban projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the exhibition explores a careful selection of around eighty original works, whether or not these were ever carried out, ranging from Wall of Oil Barrels (Rue Visconti, Paris, 1961-62) up to the important urban project, The Gates, that Christo and Jeanne-Claude realized for the city of New York in 2005. These urban works of art were created by temporarily appropriating buildings, monuments or public places with a deeply symbolic value. 

image: https://about.ing.be/About-ING/Art/Christo-Jeanne-Claude.-Urban-Projects.htm

II.

Exhibition title: Ways of Seeing
Artists: Ghada Amer, Chris Bond, Frédéric Borgella, Thierry Bosquet, James Casebere, David Claerbout, Jojakim Cortis & Adrian Sonderegger, Salvador Dali, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Mona Hatoum, Jeppe Hein, Paul et Marlene Kos, Alicja Kwade, Gustav Metzger, Herman Moll, Shana Moulton, Vik Muniz, Grayson Perry, Walid Raad, Fred Sandback, Hassan Sharif, Cindy Sherman, Markus Schinwald, Kim Tschang-Yeul, James Turrell, Kara Walker, James Webb. 
Venue: Fondation Boghossian, Villa Empain
Dates: Until February 18, 2018 

Taking its cue from John Berger’s 1972 seminal text on visual culture, Ways of Seeing explores the various formalistic strategies that artists employ to re-configure our perception of the world. Ways of Seeing features 27 artists and artist collectives, and consists of 70 works, spanning a variety of media from painting, sculpture and photography to sound, film and installation. It facilitates a return towards a vision of artists as makers of things, who relentlessly remind us that the connection between what we see and what we know is never settled, and that seeing is, at its core, a political act.

image: http://www.villaempain.com/en/20-septembre-2017-exposition-ways-of-seeing/

Take a private tour with Jacinthe in Brussels to discover more!

Brussels Art Guide - August

- by Jacinthe Gigou

I.
Exhibition title: Ado Chale Alchemist. Artisan. Designer
Artist/s: Ado Chale
Venue: BOZAR, 23 rue Ravenstein, 1000 Brussels
Dates: 18/08 – 24/09/2017

Born in Brussels, Ado Chale is a mineralogist and blacksmith, who uses crystals or petrified wood in his works of art, and approaches making furniture like a craftsman rather than as a designer. This very first retrospective outlines the career and the world of Ado Chale, through carefully selected pieces of furniture and objects, such as his famous Goutte d’eau bronze table, inspired by pre-Columbian art

II.
Exhibition title: Art is comic
Artist/s: Brecht Vandenbroucke, Mon Colonel & Spit, Brecht Evens, HuskMitNavn, Jean Jullien, Joan Cornellà
Venue: MIMA, 39 quai du Hainaut, 1080 Brussels
Dates: Until 31/12/2017

The MIMA opened on the day after the terrorist attacks in Brussels, a time of sadness and uncertainty. That is when the idea for this exhibition originated. How to respond to rampant anxiety and escalating secterianism? Humour! If the humour of “Art Is Comic” hits home with you, you will feel an antidepressant effect immediately.

Joan Cornella

Brussels Art Guide - June

I.
Exhibition title: Material Light Shows by Georges Meurant
Artist/s: Georges Meurant
Venue: Aeroplastics contemporary, rue Washington 186 à 1050 Brussels
Dates: From 15 June, 2017


George Meurant is a belgian colorist painter whom I particularly like. In 1990 he invented the figural field, the experiment of which continues. His painting becomes a patchwork of colored rectangles by which he experiences the interactions between tones. He paints in oil, on wood, in generally square formats, no color is the same, and varies according to the hours of the day

II.
Exhibition title: Nicolas Party, Three Seasons
Artist/s: Nicolas Party
Venue: Xavier Hufkens Gallery, 107 rue Saint-Georges, 1050 Brussels
Dates: Until 15 July, 2017


For his inaugural exhibition at the gallery, Swiss artist Nicolas Party has executed two site-specific murals that transform the interior while creating a singular environment for a recent group of large-scale pictures and bronze sculptures. The simple, classical and almost generic subjects (the still life, the landscape, the nude) coupled with the artist’s distinctive style (inexpressive, reductive, devoid of anecdote) gives rise to images of great visual immediacy and a profound, almost unsettling, stillness.  

III.

Exhibition title: Benoît Platéus, Telephone Poles
Artist/s: Benoît Platéus
Venue: Albert Baronian Gallery, 2 rue Isidore Verheyden, 1050 Brussels
Dates: 9 June - 15 July 2017


The young belgian artist Benoît Platéus photographs the spaces he experiences : modern urban views, interiors, caves - as many spaces that surround him but which he does not master. He pays particular attention to light, that light whose intensity deconstructs the image; A powerful flash that can be caused by a ray of sunlight as well as a flashlight. These moments of blinding openness, those meanwhile we enjoy when a ray of sunlight blinds us a fraction of a second and immediately forget them, are moments that he places at the center of his work.

- by Jacinthe Gigou