Positioning itself in line with other high profile international events, Brussels Art Days has been renamed more appropriately as the Brussels Gallery Weekend. For the 9th year in a row, this event launches the gallery season with a dynamic program of exhibitions, panel discussions and tours of the city’s leading contemporary art galleries and institutional art venues. The New York Times recently highlighted how Art Brussels week makes the European capital a “serious destination for collectors of contemporary art,” and this 4-day event places a spotlight on the quality, diversity and vision that have built Brussels’ reputation. Brussels Gallery Weekend shows not only why Brussels is a serious destination for collectors, but also why it’s become one for artists, curators and other cultural catalysts.
31 local galleries have been invited to join this year’s event, which compiles a program of leading international artists, rising local talents and an innovative curatorial program. They include; Aeroplastics, Valérie Bach, Albert Baronian, Bernier/Eliades, Didier Claes, Dauwens & Beernaert, dépendance, Dvir, Feizi, MLF | Marie-Laure Fleisch, Pierre-Marie Giraud, Gladstone, Hopstreet, Xavier Hufkens, Jablonka Maruani, Mercier, Rodolphe Janssen, Keitelman, Harlan Levey Projects, Maniera, Greta Meert, Meessen De Clercq, Jan Mot, Nathalie Obadia, Office Baroque, Almine Rech, Michel Rein, Sorry We’re Closed, Stems, Micheline Szwajcer, Daniel Templon, and Caroline Van Hoek
A CURATORIAL APPROACH
Following last year’s collaboration with Caroline Dumalin of WIELS, Brussels Gallery Weekend has invited Matteo Lucchetti as guest curator. Lucchetti proposes an overarching theme, The Dispersed Museum, which offers an alternative way to navigate the shows as if they were parts of an imaginary museum’s program. The suggestion is that “existing public institutions and galleries shape a strong and solid offer, which could be alternatively observed as the program of a dispersed museum with many different active spots rather than a system relying on one centralizing building.” The lack of a Museum of Contemporary Art in Brussels becomes a trigger to involve the local community of artists, curators, gallerists and collectors in a round table discussion that re-imagines the future role and functions of the museum.
Every year Brussels Gallery Weekend also puts a spotlight on some of the outstanding non-profit, institutional and artist run spaces that contribute to the city’s inspiring contemporary art landscape as well as some of the private collections that have helped raise the profile of Brussels as a leading destination. Brussels based curators Sonia Dermience (Komplot) and Anne-Claire Schmitz (La Loge) will join Lucchetti in guiding guests to different destinations as each develops their own tour through the weekend’s activities.
This year’s guest venues include; Boghossian Foundation, BOZAR, CAB, Clovis XV, Deborah Bowmann, ERG, Etablissement d’en face, ISELP, Island, Komplot, La Loge, NICC, Parc Design, Rosa Brux, Société, Vanhaerents Art Collection, and WIELS.
Brussels is being advertised as a new European capital for contemporary art, with two international art fairs, solid public and private institutions, and new galleries opening venues a regular pace. In contrast to the positive press and expanding scene, the city does not yet have a museum for contemporary art. While its construction has been under discussions for several years now, most art professionals in town are barely part of this conversation on what the museum should look like and what functions it should perform. It is the existing public organizations, together with the galleries, who are giving shape to a strong environment – which could be the exact idea of a “dispersed museum” – many different active spots rather than a system relying on one centralizing building.
Find out more at www.brusselsgalleryweekend.com
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