70 years of the Brafa art fair in Brussels: Young and Art Nouveau

Nowhere does broken looks more beautiful than vervoordt. The art dealer from Antwerp presents a single arm made of bronze – slim, aesthetic and empty, a remnant of ancient culture.

The monumental object from the fourth century can be found in Vervoordt’s booth next to an abstract picture by Jef Verheyen. And as so often, the gallery aims at this fascinatingly beautiful, completely unobtrusive combination in the heart of the trade fair that Brafa calls itself and has gathered art and antiques at a high level once a year for 70 years.

Vervoordt shows how it works. Like the Brafa, which was originally for Hellenistic sculptures, icons, old watches, tapestries, medieval paintings or furniture from past centuries, can reconcile with the new tendencies in their own ranks.

Here, visitors are amazed at the colossal Ramses bed at the stand of the Marc Maison gallery, which was seen in 1889 at the Paris World Exhibition and symbolizes the highlight of European Egyptianism.

Naked by the American pop artist Tom Wesselmann, mobile from Alexander Calder or nail picture by Günther Uecker, who can be found here more and more, are much more uncomplicated.

The Brafa never had financial resources. Your audience is interested, knows how to invest and also invest high sums. Otherwise, neither the long life of the Brafa nor its well -known exhibitors can be explained.

Gamammarco Cappuzo Fine Art from London travels to exhibit a picture of the baroque painter Jusepe de Ribera for 800,000 euros. Hoffmans Antiques takes Gustavian armchairs from the early 19th century from Stockholm, and for the first time the London Galerie Colnaghi is represented. In addition to a Roman torso, she has the study of a skull in Wilhelm Leibl (around 1868).

And yet the current distribution of art dealers in the halls of Expo Brussels irritates: The traditional dealers such as Heutnik icons, J. Baptista from Lisbon with his historical silver or Lowet de Wotrenge (Antwerp) with a classic genre of Venus and Cupido from 1670 are housed in the last gear of the second exhibition hall.

At the entrance, the gallery of Verstes is now receiving in its generous stand with pictures by George Condo, an abstraction Ernst Wilhelm Nays (300,000 euros) and an object from Yayoi Kusama – with the art of the present, but still from the monstrous fabric sculptures hanging in the main course the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos is topped.

Your objects are currently the order of the day, but does a trade fair for your specialty really have to follow the trend and invite Vasconcelos to decorate the corridors? Shouldn’t one have been able to link the old and new things in an exemplary staging in the same positions – following the eternal pioneer Axel Vervoordt?

The private bank Delen, sponsor of Brafa and loyal buyers, does it instead. As always, she has a huge stand at the fair. And as always, she shows in ad worth-worthy interiors, which can be mixed from furniture and pictures and applied arts of all epochs.

180 exhibitors – always good for surprises

Referring to such impressions, one strolls to the stand of the Paris Gallery BG Arts, which shows exclusively Art Nouveau vases by René Lalique, admires the imagination of the Belgian painter James Ensor, whose pictures hang at Samuel Vanhoegaerden, and dreams of it, with the tribal art on To bring together Didier Claes. Or the shimmering glass of the Renaissance, which Sylvia Kovacek from Vienna even combines with drawings by Egon Schiele.

Here is the strength of the Brafa with its 180 exhibitors, who are always good for surprises. Jef Verheyen at the Vervoordt stand was friends with Günther Uecker and Lucio Fontana, but his former heart death in 1984 then promoted him from the radar. He is now present on Brafa, just like Jean Rets with his geometric motifs, for which gallery owner Maurice Verbaet is made of Knokke.

As if the dealers had agreed this year, the wonderfully angular landscapes of Bernard Buffet meet you everywhere, a nude painting from 1959 blows up at the booth of the Taménaga gallery with almost three meters. In large format, the cows of Nils Kreuger rest at the Kunsthandel Dr. Nöth, whose expressive color is just inserted by the black contours of the animals (90,000 euros).

Desmet Fine Art radiates the marble fragment of an antique venus, into which you fall in love with immediately because it is infinitely fine and amazingly abstract. The flying bones of Vasconcelos are aesthetically overwhelming the tiny sculpture.

The head of Desmet Fine Art with a focus on classic sculptures from antiquity to the 19th century is Tobias Desmet. At the age of 41, he does not only belong to the youngest generation at Brafa, but is also her new, self -confident general secretary. His expertise and preferences tend to the distant past as well as with Klaas Muller, who belongs to the new Brafa board. We can only hope that even after the fair’s anniversary, they will succeed in an exciting balance between the epochs.