The Visual Artists’ News Sheet
January – February 2015
31
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Wiels, Brussels, photo by Kritien Daem
Installation view of work by Barbara Knezevic for ‘The Future Perfect’ at Rubicon Gallery, 2013, image courtesy of Rubicon Gallery
Complex, Incomplete & Thriving CLAIRE POWER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF TBG+S, DUBLIN, REFLECTS ON WORKING IN BRUSSELS. Since I moved to Brussels in March 2014, the situation for artists and artistic production in the city has been uppermost in my mind. Brussels is a very particular context that’s worth understanding. The city is at the frontline of a linguistically and economically divided, geographically small country (albeit population size of 10.5 million): the Dutch-speaking Flanders to the North and French-speaking Wallonia to the South. Symbolically, Brussels is the capital of Europe. It is home to two million citizens, the EU and NATO headquarters, with tens of thousands of affluent foreign professionals and a large immigrant population of Turks, Moroccans and Africans coexisting with the native Brusselois. Although officially bilingual, in reality 63.2% of Brussels inhabitants are native French speakers, less than 20% are Dutch natives and 21.1% of Brusselois speak Arabic as their mother tongue. The deep linguistic and economic divisions between Flanders and Wallonia make national government very difficult. Famously, in February 2011, Belgium reached 249 days without a government, breaking a record set by Iraq in 2010. If it sounds complicated, that’s because it is. I recently met up with two other professional art world outsiders – German artist Erika Hock and Greek-born curator Katerina Gregos – to reflect on the visual art scene in Brussels. While hype about Brussels as the next up-and-coming centre for contemporary has been circulating for some time, there are also stories of artists who arrive in Brussels and leave after a few weeks, ultimately disappointed by a city that does not easily offer up its charms. Hock has observed a high level of improvisation in the way Belgian artists work and a sense of humour inherited from Belgian Surrealism. “The work is often loose, playful, humorous,” she claimed. Hock also noted that conversations with her peers reflect on “the feel of Brussels: the permanent surprise it evokes to live here and how that relates to a curiosity and an exploratory relationship with the city”. Hock sees the city’s character as hidden and chaotic, with a charm that is tied to the fact that “the city doesn’t belong to anyone and you feel that. It’s international, open and transient”. The city’s reputation for being ‘small-scale metropolitan’ and the art institution Wiels (wiels.org) are two significant draws for many artists and curators. Something I’ve noticed since moving to Brussels is the recurring importance of Wiels for many young artists, which runs an international programme of exhibitions (currently, Mark Leckey’s ‘Lending Enchantment to Vulgar Materials’ and ‘Echolia’ by Ana Torfs) side-by-side with its artists’ residency programme. Among the many independent spaces in the city, Etablissement d’en face (etablissementdenfaceprojects.org) projects is a small, innovative art space, which has established a strong narrative of exhibitions. Its programme is conceived by a working group of artists and its
curatorial rigour makes it an important space for artists and curators. As a curator working in Brussels, Katerina Gregos notes the prevalence of practices relating to formalist trends – Minimalism, Post-Minimalism and Conceptualism – over political and socially engaged work. For many reasons, Gregos is looking forward to curating ‘Personne et Les autres’ for the Belgium Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. This formidable exhibition is an intelligent, ‘against the grain’ collaboration with Belgian artist Vincent Messen. “It will be a political statement: a not-widely-known Belgian artist, an international group exhibition, curated by a ‘foreigner’ on the subject of colonialism,” said Gregos. Much of the scale of what happens is Brussels is modest. Even Wiels, the premiere art institution, is a mid-scale kunsthalle. And, as Gregos puts it, “in Brussels there is so much of the art scene that is happening at a micro-scale and off-radar,” which means that ‘gigantism’ is avoided. Since 2012, Katerina Gregos has been artistic director of Art Brussels contemporary art fair (artbrussels.com). Art Brussels shines a light on Belgium’s independent art scene by hosting six not-forprofit spaces from all over Belgium, alongside the galleries. Featured in 2014 were NICC (Brussels), Objectif (Antwerp), LLS 387 (Antwerp), CIAP (Hasselt), Hotel Charleroi (Charleroi) and KIOSK (Ghent). The Curators’ Programme for Art Brussels is co-organised with the Flemish Institute for Visual, Audio-visual and Media Art (BAM) and hosts 30 professional curators over an intensive four days. So far Tessa Giblin (Project Arts Centre) and Hugh Mulholland (The MAC) are the Irish curators to have participated. Kevin Kavanagh gallery also presented a solo exhibition by Nevan Lahart, ‘Serf Vice Paintings,’ in the Solo & Young section of the fair. Another independent space is the Kanal 45 building, a ‘transitional’ eleven-storey high-rise in downtown Brussels where I have a workspace. One of the main animators of the space, Wolke, describe themselves as “a group of people with a common interest in production structures for creativity”. The collective offers a collaborative place, studios and room for exhibitions, talks and events, and residencies. On 24 November 2014, artists’ platform State of the Arts met in Kanal 45 with Sven Gatz, the Flemish Minister of Culture, Media and Youth in Brussels to publicly discuss the 2015 sector budget cuts. From my personal experience of settling into Brussels over almost a year, I’ve found it open and welcoming. Katerina Gregos’s idea of Brussels as a non-hierarchical city where networks and relationships are easily formed resonates strongly. Working as a cultural freelancer / consultant has proved very different to my institutional role at TBG+S. Cultural freelancers occupy a position ‘in-between,’ which hones criticality, perspective, and is ultimately precarious.
The working space I’ve most easily slotted into in Brussels / Belgium is creating new networks and platforms for artistic production and peer-exchange. I recently prepared an EU Creative Europe bid, entitled The Possibilities of Place, between partner organisations (in Belgium, France, Ireland and Romania) as well as an Ireland / Belgium Curators’ Programme for 2015. There is an ease of cultural connectivity enabled by the city’s central position in Europe, compared to Ireland’s peripheral location. The ‘two-hour radius’ around Brussels ensures that many curators, artists and arts professionals regularly travel by train to Amsterdam, London or Paris for work and inspiration. Brussels is an obliging base for such nomads. Belgium’s historic and beautiful cities such as Antwerp, Ghent, Liege, each have distinct art scenes and key institutions – the most well known are Objectif, Extra City Kunsthal and M KHA in Antwerp, as well as S.M.A.K and the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in nearby Ghent. Over the last nine months, I’ve seen a lot exciting, world-class art in Brussels: Franz Erhard Walther at Wiels; Emily Wardill’s ‘When you fall into a trance’ at Loge in Brussels (from the Sydney Biennale); and new crossover work between visual arts and performing arts, such as ‘The Place of Dead Roads’, by Danish artist Joachim Koester, screened to the accompaniment of a live concert by Miles Whittaker and presented by the Jan Mot gallery at the Kaaitheater. Yet, while Brussels is a dynamic centre for art, the city remains incomplete and complex. Gregos argues that there is an absence of a common vision due to “the individualism that is a strength of the city and also a detriment to its collectivism”. In September this year, the seventh iteration of Brussels Art Days (brusselsartsdays.com) organised a press conference entitled ‘How to transform Brussels into the most important European capital of contemporary art’. Brussels Art Days is an event held each September in which 30 leading galleries start the new art season together. This year Josephine Kelleher and Rubicon Projects – who works in Dublin and Brussels – presented a solo exhibition by Tom Molloy, ‘STAY HUMAN’, in a Belgian collector’s private gallery during Brussels Art Days 2014. Belgium – and Flanders in particular – is home to an unusually large community of serious and well-informed art collectors and processes the world’s highest number of art collectors per capita. Some private collections are publicly accessible, for example the Vanhaerents’ Collection (vanhaerentsartcollection.com). It is indicative of the city’s rising star that long-time Antwerp gallerist Micheline Szwajcer recently relocated to Brussels. Yet the city still has no public collection of contemporary art, nor institutional platforms collecting important work by artists operating outside of the gallery circuit. In 2007, there was a failed attempt at a Brussels Biennale and the hot topic of discussion is now the building of a museum for contemporary art by 2016. Questions are being asked about the political motivations behind building the museum and future commitment of funding to staffing, acquisitions and international programming. The proposed site for the museum is a garage and warehouse owned by French car manufacturer Citreon located in the downbeat canal district. Are art and the new museum being used purely as tools for gentrification? Or is there real political will to make an ambitious international statement with the new museum? Whatever happens next for Brussels, whether the city reaches its tipping point or not, there are fear factors surrounding higher rents, homogenisation and big city branding. So this is Brussels: a little grey, a little gritty, but with lots of beguiling qualities beneath the surface and a flourishing art scene, with or without the hype. Claire Power is a freelance cultural consultant and producer in the visual arts working between Ireland and Belgium. She was director of Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin until February 2014. Katerina Gregos is artistic director of Art Brussels and is curating the Belgian Pavilion at the next Venice Biennialle. She will also curate the 5th Thessaloniki Biennial (May – September 2015) ‘Between the Pessimism of the Intellect and the Optimism of the Spirit’. Erika Hock is a Kyrgyzstan-born German artist, now based in Brussels. Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘The Seamstress, Her Mistress, the Mason and the Thief’, Tenderpixel Gallery, London 2014; Salzburger Kunstverein/ Kabinett, 2015 (curated by Seamus Kealy and COSAR HMT, Dealyn / Kabi). erikahock.de.