Brussels Art Guide

Every year the Foundation for the Arts publishes the Cultural Guide to Brussels. This week the Foundation launches a new booklet, the biennial Brussels Art Guide. The new guide is in two parts: one contains interviews with personalities from the contemporary-art scene, while the other presents a survey of those notables’ favourite places.

BOOK | Brussels Art Guide ●●
Foundation For The Arts EN, 176 p., €15

In the foreword to the Guide, its editor, Guy de Bellefroid, explains that it is aimed at both professionals and ordinary art-lovers. A difficult combination, so its compilers decided to allow twelve “key players” on the Brussels art scene to have their say. The twelve include collectors/gallery-owners, curators, and designers: among them are Albert Baronian, Katerina Gregos, and Dimitri Jeurissen. Over two pages each, a portrait is sketched via a short, not very searching interview with a photograph. The second part of the book turns the spotlight on 38 contemporary art locations in Brussels that the twelve are particularly fond of.

Alongside the inevitable establishments such as Argos, Bozar, Établissement d’en Face Projects, Xavier Hufkens, Greta Meert, Jan Mot, and Wiels, a number of younger projects and less obvious locations are highlighted, including CAB, La Loge, Maison Particulière, Sébastien Ricou Gallery, Théophile’s Papers, and Gallery VidalCuglietta. Each is allotted a page with a text, sometimes by the institution itself, that offers a short outline of its mission, founding, and plans for the future. One or two photographs of the space, often showing a recent exhibition, accompany each text.
In a time when everyone rapidly checks the Internet for exhibition timetables (for example, via the excellent and selective www.neca.be site, which is also run by the Foundation for the Arts), the new BAG for 2013–14 also includes a calendar. The final section includes a certain amount of – briefly presented – data. Contemporary visual art, however, is often programmed at short notice. The Brussels Art Guide is published in English only – a good choice for this international city – but is distributed by Cook&Book and Interforum, both of which distribute French-language publications.
So does this guide live up to its slogan, “Everything you need to know about the Brussels contemporary art scene”? Not really: by that standard, it remains a selection of personalities and the texts lack depth. It is, however, an attractive introduction for foreign visitors and has been playfully but austerely designed by Codefrisko.