“B” Here Now

WHETHER BRUSSELS IS THE “NEW BERLIN,” your “B-sides” (à la artist Megan Marrin), or a “hellhole” (à la Trump), it’s certainly a destination, especially in the spring, when the de facto capital of Europe draws thousands to its annual Brussels Art Week. Just ask newcomer (but not outsider) Elizabeth Dee, who enthusiastically jumped the gun this year by inaugurating Independent on Wednesday, twenty-four hours before the preview of its more established competitor, Art Brussels. Held in the modernist Vanderborght building––beautifully renovated by Bart Biermans of HUB architecture––in the heart of downtown Brussels, the first Belgian edition of New York’s international club of cool galleries and their artists wowed visitors with its attention to detail and its unorthodox open plan.

Following artist Sarah Ortmeyer’s suggestion, I went straight to the top––where else?––and made my way down Guggenheim NY style. Like in that Frank Lloyd Wright–designed edifice, sight lines bled from one into the other in well-curated conversations among booths, bodies, and works and across the central five-story atrium. Among those that held most in my mind were Melike Kara’s oil-stick and acrylic Plexiglas paintings suspended in space at Peres Projects; Joël Andrianomearisoa’s deconstructed tapestries made in Creuse, France, at MAGNIN-A; Lukas Trevisani’s diptych addressing fantasy and extinction––bought by supercollector Gil Bronner––at Mehdi Chouakri; publisher Triangle Books’ editions of Jacques André books in “unemployment-stamp blue” exhibited with price tags and receipts; and Doug Ashford’s scanned and Photoshopped September 11, 2001 issue of the New York Times, using abstraction as a tool for consolation and solace with tragedy and instability at Wilfried Lentz. In short, Independent could hardly be considered a satellite fair (or a colonial invader); rather, it was a gathering of like minds that run according to their own stellar orbit.

Nevertheless, I love a good comeback story, and in her final year as Art Brussels’s artistic director, Katerina Gregos delivered. Having left her post to devote more time to independent projects, the curator (who just last year managed both Venice’s Belgian pavilion and the Thessaloniki Biennial) is leaving an improved fair in her wake. Moved out of its old location near the faraway Atomium to a more easily accessible home at Tour & Taxis, the thirty-fourth edition of the fair surprised many who thought the previous day had already determined the winner of the supposed territorial catfight. “There seems to be room enough for everyone in Brussels,” remarked 11R Gallery’s Augusto Arbizo at the VIP opening, where visitors were greeted first with the “Discovery” section of young and newly participating galleries. Having shed more than fifty booths from last year’s edition, Art Brussels looked tighter in content and quality than the two previous years. And trust me, it’s a cute look.

“It makes the galleries nervous when someone walks into a booth with black fingernails,” said newly manicured artist Kendall Geers, on this year’s jury for best stand. Winner BWA Warszawa was certainly striking, with Karol Radziszewski’s paintings which proffer the Aryan ubermensch as a homoerotic object for the viewer’s gaze, while Ewa Axelrad’s partially figurative sculptures explored the limitations between protection and aggression of the body. Sexy. Krištof Kintera’s sixteen-foot-tall sculpture of Saint Christopher made with 350 lamps at D+T Project was not to be missed, as well as Levi van Veluw’s illusory, optical installation of tumbling spheres at Ron Mandos. There was also Shaun Gladwell’s homage to Minimalism and skateboarding at Analix Forever, complete with a recurring performance around the perimeter of a square à la Bruce Nauman, and Philipp Birch’s sculptures of Cronenberg body horror meets Ed Atkins–esque hyperreality. But the highlight was the elegant selection of gems from the collection of recently late curator and SMAK founder Jan Hoet. Curated by Gregos, “Cabinet d’amis: The Accidental Collection of Jan Hoet” featured works made mostly through the enthusiast’s close relationships with artists. It was an elegant meditation on a life that’s contributed so much to what Belgium’s contemporary art scene is today.

At a local costume party celebrating one month since the attacks in Brussels––tragicomedy is a Belgian specialty––I lost both my credit card and my voice. But when drinks are free and talk is cheap, who cares? A dinner for Marina Pinksy and her surveillance-conscious photography at C L E A R I N G was made the more mirthful by an impromptu, slapstick performance by dealer Charles Antoine Bodson. A pizza party for Mark Dion’s new phosphorescent sculptures at Walburger Wouters was the prelude to party at collector Tobias Arndt’s, and a traditional dinner of Belgian fare at the classic Taverne du Passage applauded Sahra Motalebi’s haunting performance at Foundation Boghossian at the Villa Empain. Brunch at Almine Rech gallery to view Jean-Baptiste Bernadet’s new series of beautifully installed paintings transported me to the light and atmosphere of Monet’s panoramas at L’Orangerie. And a dîner à l’aise downstairs at chez Gladstone and in its adjacent garden for Ugo Rondinone and his forty-seven plaster fish in bronze brought some real feelings to the table: “In New York there’d be more artists at this dinner. Here it’s mostly rich, older white men,” lamented Taylor Trabulus of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise. Gurl, I feel your pain.

Those in the know found respite at 10 Galerie de la Reine, where local artist-run space Établissement d’En Face set up shop as a secret restaurant and dance party for the week in the apartment of artist Alex Morrison (who took it over from Lucy McKenzie). Rachida Ait-Ali acted as doorwoman and a force to be reckoned with, while artist Filip Gilissen mixed drinks and DJ’d old-school Prince (RIP) and hip-hop so good a cameo from the police couldn’t shut us down. Frequent faces included local artists Pieter Vermeersch, Zin Taylor, and Sean Crossley, as well as Gavin Brown’s table-dancing Thor Shannon––art dealer by day, art cheerleader by night (not my words). By Saturday, the secret had got out, and I overheard one young, fashionable curator from New York whine, “We don’t know anybody here. Let’s go.” While the tourists trickled out, the insiders, including the inimitable Gregos herself, stuck around and danced till sunrise. And wouldn’t you have too, if only you were that cool?

— Julian Elias Bronner