From 7 to 10 September, 45 art galleries and other spaces in Brussels will offer a series of exhibitions, performances and installations for the 16th edition of Brussels Gallery Weekend (BGW).
From the central venue in D'Ieteren Group's headquarters, visitors can use the BGW map to discover participating galleries and spaces and explore events organised in neighbourhoods such as Sablon, Ixelles, Châtelain and Saint Gilles through guided tours.
12 self-guided routes are also available to download, which take visitors to galleries, exhibitions and other destinations in the OFF programme (non-gallery venues like institutions, foundations and private collections).
Families can also use the Little Art Guide: an itinerary organised around games, workshops and explanations to engage children with the exhibitions in French and Dutch.
Credit: Brussels Gallery Weekend / Antonin Weber
Generation Brussels
BGW will include the 6th edition of Generation Brussels – an exhibition which highlights local artists living and working in the city. The show is curated by art critic Sam Steverlynck and entitled 'Cet obscur objet du désir' ('This dark object of desire') after the surreal 1977 Luis Buñuel film.
The works displayed this year tap into the film's invitation to play, described by organisers as both appealing "but the works also have something dark and even threatening about them. Some of the videos, sculptures and installations... exert a strange kind of attraction you can't tear your eyes away from."
L-R clockwise art by: Bas van den Hout; Maëlle Dufour; Lucian Moriyama.
BGW Tours
The self-guided routes each follow their own theme. For instance the 'Belgian route' introduces participants to Belgium-based artists and includes philosopher, visual artist and writer Thierry De Corder's highly-anticipated 'Passe-montagne' exhibition at Xavier Hufkens gallery in St-Georges.
Other themed tours include the 'Unusual Materials' route, which features Lauren Seiden's graphite-paper artworks at the NOSCO gallery, as well as the 'Video Art and New Media', including an extensive selection of Francis Alÿs' films of children's games in contrast with his paintings and the film installation 'The Silence of Ani' at the Wiels art gallery.
L-R clockwise, artwork by: Thierry De Cordier; Lauren Seiden; Children’s Game #10 by Francis Alÿs in collaboration with Félix Blume and Elena Pardo.
Diversity in creativity
As the second-oldest city art event after the Berlin Gallery Weekend, Brussels Gallery Weekend is committed to highlighting the diversity of Brussels' contemporary art scene and promoting the city's importance on the global art scene. To this end, organisers this year are collaborating with the Ateliers Indigo and Globe Aroma associations.
"Globe Aroma will present four artists they support while Atelier Indigo, with whom we are collaborating for the first time, will showcase the creations of 12 artists with disabilities, each revealing diverse practices and unique concerns," says BGW Director Justyna Gajko-Berckmans.
Ateliers Indigo gallery flyer; a close-up of Nastasya Kharitonova's Self-portrait with dog (Globe Aroma); a close-up of Youssef Moukil's Human figure (Globe Aroma).
For more information about the show, tours and participating galleries, see here.
