Galila Barzilaï-Hollander collapsed on a bench at the Art Brussels fair with a satisfied smile. Dressed in a pleated blue ensemble with shocks of neon orange accessories, the 74-year-old local collector proudly held up her well-worn card from the fair. She had checked off each of the stands she had visited – the 152 galleries exhibiting at Art Brussels this year, which took place from 20 to 23 April at Brussels Expo.
It’s a method Barzilai-Hollander has embraced since becoming a voracious collector traveling around the world after her husband’s death in 2005. She now buys on average around one piece of art a day and owns a few thousand works. , but who counts?
“I buy a piece first, then I ask for the artist’s name,” she told Artnet News. If a dealer tries to explain too much, she stops them. “I don’t want that bullshit,” she said. “I trust my instincts, and history will tell if I’m wrong. But what does it mean to be wrong? That’s my type of freedom.
Barzilaï-Hollander may feel atypical of Belgium’s disproportionately large community of seasoned collectors, due to her “late start” and non-scholarly approach, but she shares an underlying quality with them: an openness to collecting little-known artists. This is partly why the 39e edition of the fair has such a range of awards available from a wide range of emerging talent; the works are around $1 million but start at just $400, and many are between $10,000 and $30,000.
Barzilaï-Hollander reading a plan of the fair. Photo courtesy of Art Brussels.
“What is absolutely unique in Belgium is that its collectors will buy without validation [from the art world]”, collector Alain Servais told Artnet News. However, the question remains whether the region’s highly committed collector base is large enough to sustain a truly international fair, which Art Brussels aims to be. Whatever reservations remain about the fair for some, the city’s vibrant art scene tempers them considerably, thanks to an electrifying program of events and exhibitions that any art lover can enjoy.
On Wednesday evening, at the stylish private social club The Merode, visitors were greeted with cocktails meant to ward off insomnia, served in sculptural white handmade mugs. Guests sat on plush chairs in the venue’s cozy theater and listened to “The Night Watch”, a new series of sound shows by ten artists, curated by Brussels-based artist and curator Els Vermang, which aim to stimulate creativity awakened by insomnia. nights.
“Not having serious economic pressure opens up more mental and creative options,” Vermang said when asked why the region has fostered such a rich alternative art scene. Vermang, who runs the Société d’Electricité exhibition platform from a former electricity plant, said his fellow artists are well connected, both to nearby major art capitals, such as London and Paris, and within the local arts community.
Photo credit: HV-studio. Courtesy of Xavier Hufkens, Brussels
The Jaqueline Martins gallery in Brussels, for example, is working with Vermang to organize a “boiler room” on the ground floor which will be used for guest projects. However, in a possible sign of the fair’s weaker international weight, the much-loved gallery has pulled out of this edition of Art Brussels, after participating last year. “We decided to focus on other projects,” said gallery partner Yuri Olivera. “For us, it is very important to support the environment in Brussels and to help create an exciting experience in the city.”
Maybe it was a wise choice. Despite praise for its team of committed organizers, now led by Nele Verhaeren, and some great finds, especially among many popular solo stands, the fair’s offering left some disappointed. Sales also appeared slow the first few days, even with a clever initiative to invite collectors to lunch on site, to start the day earlier.
Still, this edition had a lot of positive takeaways and eager buyers. Brussels-based Xavier Hufkens had a stand full of striking everyday portraits by a young Franco-Israeli artist Nathanael Herbelin. A new addition to the gallery’s roster, Herbelin’s works ranged from $13,000 to $37,000, a slight increase over the prices of his works last sold at Paris + by Art Basel.
Servais has also purchased the entire solo installation by artist Louka Anargyros from the Septieme gallery in Paris. A newcomer to the fair, the gallery priced the entire booth at around $66,000. The installation, called Changing room, presented motoGP racing suits hanging limply on hooks, made of ceramic by the young Parisian artist. What at first appears to be sponsor logos on the costumes, on second glance are homophobic slurs hurled at the entertainer during his lifetime.
At Les Filles du Calvaire, also from Paris, a solo exhibition by self-taught artist Jeremie Cosimi, born in 1987 in Marseille, included paintings and sculptures of imaginary myths, with references to antiquity and portraits of Fayum mummies from ancient Egypt, priced from $1,100 to $20,000. The gallery recently began representing Cosimi, whom they discovered after he sent them his unsolicited portfolio.
Stand of the Les Filles du Calvaire gallery at Art Brussel 2023. Photo: GRASYC.
Another highlight was a solo presentation by Thu Van Tran at Brussels-based Meessen De Clercq, with works selling for between $20,300 and $50,500. It included layered abstract paintings using colors symbolic of defoliants, such as Agent Orange, which were used by the US military during the Vietnam War. Gallery co-founder Olivier Meessen said he had a very successful fair and added a host of new clients, who were mostly small-scale regional collectors.
Belgium’s unique mix of cultures and its influence on an open-minded collector base are among the reasons new gallery KIN chose the city as their landing pad. Founded by renowned German curator Nicolas Schafhausen, it was launched the same week as the fair, April 19. The “size of Brussels allows for stronger connections while remaining an international city at its core,” Schafhausen said. “I believe this is critical to the success of companies like ours.” The gallery’s first exhibition presents the “micro” part of a double exhibition presented with the Gladstone Gallery, of works by the Belgian duo Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys. The work at KIN included strange creatures with human parts and adult faces, as well as furry and insect-like or animal-like bodies.
In another event further afield at the SMAK museum in Ghent, South Korean artist Haegue Yang mingled with visitors at the Friday opening of her solo exhibition, where no one blinked at her glasses cat’s-eye sunbursts, despite the surrounding darkness. The exhibition opened alongside a playful and historical insight into influential Dutch conceptual artist Pieter Engels.
Stand of Meessen de Clercq at Art Brussels 2023.
Among the opening guests was 34-year-old art collector Lien Lannoo, who described her love for acquiring art, no matter how small her collection. “It’s an extension of our bodies and our minds,” she said, adding that she longed for the works of young artist Olivier Souffrant, which were on display at local gallery Stems, which had just opened. this week an exhibition with a buzzing, alternative and fashion-savvy audience.
Back with Barzilaï-Hollander in her POC space (Passion, Obsession, Collection), the collector served tea and cookies to the guests on a Alice in Wonderland-long table decorated with carvings in the shape of food. Its gleefully abundant semi-permanent exhibition titled “Overdose” includes countless works by rising stars as well as top-notch artists, though artist names aren’t automatically available. In fact, she gets tickled when guests adore a cheap purse or a tasty sign she picked up for five cents and tossed into the preservative mix.
When asked if she attended any of the off-schedule events, Barzilaï-Hollander explained that she was too busy doing round-the-clock tours. Servais felt the same way. “This week, I am as much a host as the fair,” he said, noting his fellow collector from Brussels Frederic de Goldschmidt, had hastened to make himself available for a new request, because he was, “at the service of the community this week”. Both present must-see exhibitions from their collections, respectively in The Loft and Cloud 7.
“We participate in the attractiveness of the city,” added Servais. “We balance it out with doing a community effort, because we love this community and would like people to visit it more.”
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