Impressions from Art Brussels
Long queues in front of the amusing Art Vending Machine at Axel Vervoordt Gallery. The Gutai artist Sadaharu Horio was sitting inside a self-made vending machine making one-minute drawings. Like a coffee machine people can chose for one euro what type of drawing they want that Horio made on the spot. On the menu were 10 choices including Imitation Painting (a painting that looked like a Picasso), Mocking Painting, SADA Painting (a painting in the artist’s own style) or Whipping Painting (which I ordered). An assistant yelled the choice in Japanese through a tube in the wall and within a minute a drawing with the artist’s signature was slipped through a rectangle underneath. Spontaneous, impulsive art made completely in the moment.
Sadaharu Horio, Art Vending Machine, Whipping Painting, 2015. Axel Vervoordt Gallery
Thomas Houseago, Yet to be titled (Poured Mask 12), 2015, Tuff-Cal, hemp, iron rebar, graphite, 91.4 x 76.2 cm, Xavier Hufkens
Alice Neel, Olivia with the Rubber Plant, 1977, oil on canvas, 153 x 122.6 cm, Xavier Hufkens
Louise Nevelson, Mirror-Shadow XXXXII, 1987, painted wood relief, 134.6 x 248.9 x 40.6 cm, Waddington Custot Galleries
Barbara Hepworth, Delphi (Stone Form), 1960, oil, pencil and wash, 97 x 76 cm, New Art Centre
Etel Adnan, Untitled, 2014, Galerie Lelong
Julio Le Parc, Six formes en Contorsion sur Fond, 102 x 52 x 20 cm, Galerie Denise René
Jan Yoors, Untitled, Charcoal on heavy weight paper, 65 x 75.5 cm, Gallery Fifty One
Sadaharu Horio, Untitled, 2015, Folded traditional Japanese paper with black Poster Colour, 215 x 275 cm. Axel Vervoordt Gallery
Ida Barbarigo, Untitled, 1961, oil paint on paper, relined on canvas, 65 x 49 cm. Axel Vervoordt Gallery
El Anatsui, Intimation, 2014, Aluminium and copper wire, 261 x 332 cm. Axel Vervoordt Gallery
Tinus Vermeersch, Hopstreet Gallery
Stephen Loughman, Golden No. 8, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 35 x 45 cm, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery
Jonathan Callan, Kudlek Gallery
The covers and side angles of different books are wrapped and folded together using screws and glue. Callan then cuts the mass into tranches. It’s a nice full circle as the paper coming from a tree now forms the growth rings of a tree.
Art Brussels contemporary art fair will move to a new home in Brussels in 2016: Tour & Taxis, a building of the former Royal Customs House situated in Brussels inner-city area. Hopefully at this new location the fair organisers will make some lighting adjustments which is now direct and harsh. Perhaps they can span a white cloth across to the ceiling which filters the light as the Frieze organisers did. It will make it a more relaxing and pleasant environment to appreciate the art at this sympathetic fair.
Written by Thierry Somers
Art Brussels 2015, Sat 25 – Mon 27 April
