Special presentations, a varied talks programme and a flagship artistic project which brings together artist-owned objects such as a signed thank you note from Hillary Clinton, a discarded toilet seat and an elephant paw.

Art Brussels, April 21-23, has announced the full Artistic Programme for its 35th edition, which comprises special presentations within the fair including of Dirk Braeckman who represents Belgium at the 57th Venice Biennale; an extensive talks programme with leading speakers in their fields discussing subjects including the artists’ estates, digital art and the Venice Biennale; and a flagship artistic project curated by internationally renowned exhibition maker Jens Hoffmann and distinguished curator and critic Piper Marshall.

Art Brussels’ flagship artistic project Mementos: Artists’ Souvenirs, Artefacts, and other Curiosities will showcase personal objects and artefacts from the private collections of 73 artists whose representative galleries are participating elsewhere in the fair, to offer an important line of enquiry into why, how, what, and when we collect. Participating artists include Shezad Dawood, Wim Delvoye, Jenny Holzer, Alex Israël, Christian Jankowski, Linder, Jonathan Monk, Laure Prouvost and Gert & Uwe Tobias. Please find the full list of artists below.

The diverse objects presented in the artistic project respond in multifarious ways to an open brief from the curators, who asked over 70 artists participating in Art Brussels 2017 to display a personal or intimate object that they have an emotional relationship with, and to describe what that object means to them. Items include: Joseph Kosuth’s signed thank you note from Hillary Clinton after Kosuth donated a work for auction to fundraise for her first US senate campaign; and an elephant paw and postcard belonging to Omar Ba, perhaps reflecting the artists’ strong connection with the history of Africa during the colonial period.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS

Dirk Braeckman at Art Brussels
In anticipation of the Belgian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, Dirk Braeckman unveils a significant range of prints from the Sisyphus series from 2005 in the lounge of Art Brussels’s partner Stibbe. Conferences will further develop ideas around both the Belgian Pavilion and the 57th Venice Biennale in the Stibbe Lounge at the fair. Art Brussels is a proud friend of the Belgian Pavilion, with the indispensable support of Stibbe.

The Belfius Lounge
Curated specially for Art Brussels, to mark its first participation as the main partner of the fair, Belfius Wealth Management brings an exclusive selection of the Belfius Art Collection to a stunning fair lounge under the title On line. Infinite connections. The many stories of the Belfius Art Collection. Building on over 50 years of promoting and collecting Belgian art, the Collection today comprises more than 4300 works encompassing five centuries of Belgian art and includes work from established artists to today’s avant-garde and tomorrow’s promising talent. The collection is acknowledged as the largest private collection of Belgian art in the country. Belfius Wealth Management will contribute to the Art Brussels Talks programme by hosting several conferences in the Belfius Lounge, inviting in-house specialists and independent speakers to address topics about the constitution, the management and the transmission of an art collection.

Wallonia-Brussels Federation
The Wallonia-Brussels Federation brings the exhibition Amorces, by Michel Mazzoni, and curated by Frédéric Collier. Michel Mazzoni, living and working in Brussels,  is a visual artist whose work is positioned at the boundary of photography and painting, figurative art and abstraction. Amorces refers to the beginning and end of film reels, unsuitable for recording. The installation includes a series of images, taken in different places and at different times, directly mounted on the walls.

TALKS PROGRAMME

The full talks programme held at Art Brussels over the duration of the fair concerns a range of vital topics for contemporary artists working in today’s context.

The Politics of Things
A series of talks, conversations and readings, to accompany the exhibition Mementos: Artists’ Souvenirs, Artefacts, and other Curiosities organised by Jens Hoffmann and Piper Marshall, brings together artists' reflections on the relationship between art and non-art objects as well as anthropological and psychoanalytical readings of the items on display. Artists participating in the talks and readings are: Kendell Geers, Karl Holmqvist, Germaine Kruip, Benoît Maire, Kris Martin, Sophie Nys and Laure Prouvost.

Artists’ Estates
The important question of how to maintain artists’ estates is explored with numerous panel discussions including speakers such as Hélène Vandenberghe, Shervone Neckles-Ortiz, Andrew Renton and Stephen Feeke.

Collecting, Intimacy and the Gift
Curator Rose Lejeune talks to Delfina Foundation Director Aaron Cezar and collectors Pedro Barbosa, Alain Servais and Dorith Galuz in a panel focused on the potential of collecting as a site of intimate encounter between artists, collectors and audiences.

The Venice Biennale
Talks at the fair feature a conversation between Dirk Braeckman who represents Belgium at the forthcoming Venice Biennale in May and curator Eva Wittocx, as well as behind-the-scenes insight into the organisation of a national pavilion and its underlying context from Katerina Gregos, curator of the critically acclaimed Danish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale and Belgian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Digital Art
New technologies in contemporary art will be explored with a panel discussion assessing the role of digital technology in art and how this has changed since it gained public attention in the late 90’s. Speakers will include collectors Alain Servais and Hampus Lindwall, artists JODI and Félix Luque Sanchez, as well as gallerist Valentina Volchkova.

Click here to see the full talks programme

Art Brussels 2017 from Friday 21 April until Sunday 23 April 2017
Preview & Vernissage: Thursday 20 April 2017: 11am to 10pm
 
Full list of participating artists in the artistic project: Alfredo Aceto, Boris Achour, David Adamo, Waseem Ahmed, Harold Ancart, Omar Ba, Jill Baroff, Robert Barry, Eric Baudelaire, Linus, Bill+Adrien Horni, Pierre Bismuth, Xiao Bo, Dirk Braeckman, Larry Clark, Sarah Conaway, Shezad Dawood, Geoffrey de Beer, Folkert de Jong, Edith Dekyndt, Wim Delvoye, A K Dolven, Lionel Estève, Andrea Éva Győri, Michel François, Leo Gabin, Kendell Geers, Babak Golkar, Thilo Heinzmann, Erika Hock, Karl Holmqvist, Jenny Holzer, Alex Israël, Christian Jankowski, Li Jingxiong, Ermias Kifleyesus, Yunchul Kim, Joseph Kosuth, Germaine Kruip, Sean Landers, José Lerma, Linder, Ella Littwitz, Shana Lutker, Benoît Maire, Kris Martin, Chris Martin, Elisabeth McAlpine, Josephine Meckseper, Théo Mercier, Mathieu Mercier, Jonathan Monk, Hermann Nitsch, Sophie Nys, Edgar Orlaineta, Slawomir Pawszak, Bruno Peinado, Annaïk Lou Pitteloud, Laure Prouvost, Thom Puckey, Pablo Rasgado, Evariste Richer, Fabrice Samyn, Malgorzata Szymankiewicz, Vibeke Tandberg, Tercerunquinto, Gert & Uwe Tobias, Barthélémy Toguo, Betty Tompkins, Joris Van de Moortel, Jan Van Imschoot, Jacques Vieille, Eric Yahnker, Thomas Zitzwitz.