(Bonom © Gautier Houba)
I am following mosaics of a classic 1980s arcade game through dimly lit Parisian streets. I am waiting for a light to change in London, when I see a rat three times my size crouching at the corner. In Prague, I notice soldiers hiding behind a car and am later relieved when I get to Berlin and see a wooden heart hanging from a tree. On it is written: “Invest in love. It’s all we got.” There are two girls taking a picture of this heart. Both are smiling and for a second the whole order of things seems simpler. Soon I’m rolling back into Brussels, where a friend I never met welcomes me every time: Leon Leon Leon. A city is not a museum. It’s full of secrets and stains, romance, and neglected opportunity. Who the hell are you, Leon?
Need something to do this summer? Look for Leon or take a tour of Brussels’s longest running art exhibition. No venue, no curator, no ticket fees, just a good walk to get lost in the city and let yourself be surprised. If you need direction, here are seven points to drift towards.
Get lost...in the city!
(Bonom © Gautier Houba)
1. Unbridled talent, 2013
You’ll find BONOM’s (aka Vincent Glowinski) work all over the city, and often above your regular point of view. While the content is always clever, the challenges he overcomes and courage he exhibits are what make his productions mind-blowing. Regardless of the forms they take, there is an energy to these images that disconnects viewers from daily life in order to change their perception of it. For creator and receiver, this is the true delight: art that changes your day and might change your life. News reactions to this work last February seemed as confused as authorities that appreciate his talent more perhaps than his illicit applications of it. This particular work (at the Hallepoort/Porte de Hal) was labeled erotic. A naked and extremely emaciated old man alone on the street, covering his genitals in what appears as embarrassment, is erotic? Makes you wonder about their office parties. Any pensioners out there looking for extra income? Call me. I’ve got an idea.
1. Unbridled talent, 2013
You’ll find BONOM’s (aka Vincent Glowinski) work all over the city, and often above your regular point of view. While the content is always clever, the challenges he overcomes and courage he exhibits are what make his productions mind-blowing. Regardless of the forms they take, there is an energy to these images that disconnects viewers from daily life in order to change their perception of it. For creator and receiver, this is the true delight: art that changes your day and might change your life. News reactions to this work last February seemed as confused as authorities that appreciate his talent more perhaps than his illicit applications of it. This particular work (at the Hallepoort/Porte de Hal) was labeled erotic. A naked and extremely emaciated old man alone on the street, covering his genitals in what appears as embarrassment, is erotic? Makes you wonder about their office parties. Any pensioners out there looking for extra income? Call me. I’ve got an idea.
(Invader © Gautier Houba)
2. Invasion, 2012
Before Bonom appeared on the streets of Paris or Brussels, at the end of the 1990s, INVADER’s interventions appeared as part of a French legacy: Baudelaire interpreted by Debord interpreted by a nouveau flaneur who created his own game, which captured the ephemeral experience of urban life. It also had a touch of Warhol to it – use icons to become iconic. These invasions became part of a new European identity: a reflection of fallen borders and increased travel amongst adventurous youth. When much larger mosaics appeared in Brussels last year (like this one just above Manneken Pis at Stoofstraat/rue de l’Étuve), I wondered if the artist had started his own clothing brand and settled down. This was not the case. This was a promotion of his journey, an outdoor exhibition parallel to one in an excellent commercial gallery. The gift he gave is giving back.
2. Invasion, 2012
Before Bonom appeared on the streets of Paris or Brussels, at the end of the 1990s, INVADER’s interventions appeared as part of a French legacy: Baudelaire interpreted by Debord interpreted by a nouveau flaneur who created his own game, which captured the ephemeral experience of urban life. It also had a touch of Warhol to it – use icons to become iconic. These invasions became part of a new European identity: a reflection of fallen borders and increased travel amongst adventurous youth. When much larger mosaics appeared in Brussels last year (like this one just above Manneken Pis at Stoofstraat/rue de l’Étuve), I wondered if the artist had started his own clothing brand and settled down. This was not the case. This was a promotion of his journey, an outdoor exhibition parallel to one in an excellent commercial gallery. The gift he gave is giving back.
(Influenza)
3. AOUW, 2004-2013
While Invader guides us through potential adventures, a project from Dutch artist INFLUENZA (aka Jeroen Jongeleen) encourages participants to create fictive ones. Less “pop”, more “boom”. “The Art of Urban Warfare” began with a text that invited people to play an absurdist war game on the streets and led to thousands of players in over a dozen countries making characters from historical images. This is a conceptual piece of street art that transforms public space into a live action board game and accepts all participants at their own risk. There are hundreds of soldiers still battling around the city (mainly in the Sint-Katelijne/Sainte-Catherine area and Little Chicago). Many are hiding in the bushes. With this work you can be a spectator, but you can also jump on the field and fight. I like Jongeleen’s approach to politics. He shoud be prime minister.
3. AOUW, 2004-2013
While Invader guides us through potential adventures, a project from Dutch artist INFLUENZA (aka Jeroen Jongeleen) encourages participants to create fictive ones. Less “pop”, more “boom”. “The Art of Urban Warfare” began with a text that invited people to play an absurdist war game on the streets and led to thousands of players in over a dozen countries making characters from historical images. This is a conceptual piece of street art that transforms public space into a live action board game and accepts all participants at their own risk. There are hundreds of soldiers still battling around the city (mainly in the Sint-Katelijne/Sainte-Catherine area and Little Chicago). Many are hiding in the bushes. With this work you can be a spectator, but you can also jump on the field and fight. I like Jongeleen’s approach to politics. He shoud be prime minister.
(Above © Gautier Houba)
4. Rise above, 2005
Some guests show up to dinner with a bottle of wine, others with dessert; ABOVE would show up with artwork he hung as a thank you for the hospitality a city showed him. Like Invader and Influenza, his work back then mapped his movements. In 2005, he visited and attached more than twenty wooden arrows around town. One evening, in drunken enthusiasm, he wrote his moniker in permanent marker on a private door and happened to meet a very unhappy home-owner (in rue Philippe de Champagnestraat). The two men talked through the situation and it led to the artist painting the entire house and leaving behind cans that would keep it touched up for eight years since. In 2006, he returned, this time dangling arrows over electric wires, again promoting the idea that we have the ability to rise above whatever hurdles we face.
4. Rise above, 2005
Some guests show up to dinner with a bottle of wine, others with dessert; ABOVE would show up with artwork he hung as a thank you for the hospitality a city showed him. Like Invader and Influenza, his work back then mapped his movements. In 2005, he visited and attached more than twenty wooden arrows around town. One evening, in drunken enthusiasm, he wrote his moniker in permanent marker on a private door and happened to meet a very unhappy home-owner (in rue Philippe de Champagnestraat). The two men talked through the situation and it led to the artist painting the entire house and leaving behind cans that would keep it touched up for eight years since. In 2006, he returned, this time dangling arrows over electric wires, again promoting the idea that we have the ability to rise above whatever hurdles we face.
(ROA © Gautier Houba)
5. A lazy pig is a happy pig, 2008
All of this so-called street art competes with advertising in some fashion. In a public visual landscape saturated with images orchestrating consumption, there’s an added joy to an interruption that promotes nothing to sell. One strong image that has no particular reason to be there, tends to make more of a positive impact than a thousand images linked to any particular agenda. This is part of the power of Belgian artist ROA. This wall behind the Ancienne Belgique (Lollepotstraat/rue de la Chaufferette) was his second mural in Brussels, an unsanctioned intervention that has become a local bragging point: four pigs sleeping peacefully as the police supervise from across the street. The first mural was in collaboration with American artist Ripo. Both were arrested, the work remains untouched on the wall behind the skate park five years later.
5. A lazy pig is a happy pig, 2008
All of this so-called street art competes with advertising in some fashion. In a public visual landscape saturated with images orchestrating consumption, there’s an added joy to an interruption that promotes nothing to sell. One strong image that has no particular reason to be there, tends to make more of a positive impact than a thousand images linked to any particular agenda. This is part of the power of Belgian artist ROA. This wall behind the Ancienne Belgique (Lollepotstraat/rue de la Chaufferette) was his second mural in Brussels, an unsanctioned intervention that has become a local bragging point: four pigs sleeping peacefully as the police supervise from across the street. The first mural was in collaboration with American artist Ripo. Both were arrested, the work remains untouched on the wall behind the skate park five years later.
(Chuck Hargrove & Bonom © Gautier Houba)
6. Cultural heritage, 2007
Cultural heritage is another voice amongst the advertisements, and while the Tintin murals around town may be the most iconic public artworks, this wall on rue Blaesstraat represents an international generational dialogue that speaks of the city’s changing face. CHUCK HARGROVE (aka Koor) was commissioned to paint the wall, a testimony to his rich legacy and local contribution. To young artists influenced by graffiti and hip hop, Koor is the link that takes them between the Bronx and Brussels. Bonom’s appearance on the wall rising up behind Koor’s mural puts these two influential artists in a conversation about civil disobedience, lines, and colour (or perhaps fossils, extraterrestrials, and time warps).
6. Cultural heritage, 2007
Cultural heritage is another voice amongst the advertisements, and while the Tintin murals around town may be the most iconic public artworks, this wall on rue Blaesstraat represents an international generational dialogue that speaks of the city’s changing face. CHUCK HARGROVE (aka Koor) was commissioned to paint the wall, a testimony to his rich legacy and local contribution. To young artists influenced by graffiti and hip hop, Koor is the link that takes them between the Bronx and Brussels. Bonom’s appearance on the wall rising up behind Koor’s mural puts these two influential artists in a conversation about civil disobedience, lines, and colour (or perhaps fossils, extraterrestrials, and time warps).
(Emmanuel Bayon / Manu-Tention)
7. Gift economy, 2012
For as short or long as they last, all of these stories become iconic parts of the city’s visual narrative through the generosity of artists giving away their labour with a sense of participation, playfulness, and dialogue. They are full of colour and yet belong properly to an abused grey zone. This is a sentiment expressed beautifully in a subtle project by EMMANUEL BAYON (aka Manu-Tention), who speaks of those concepts through action as he summarises the power of illicit interventions. (This one, at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, is already gone.) His Actions/Réparations, that just won the Jeune artiste Arts Libre prize, consist of calling attention to cracks in the system, and demonstrating how creativity, desire, and will power can enable citizens to take more active responsibility in constructing urban puzzles and transforming our shared spaces. Creative Action = Active Creation!
INTERVIEWS
> INTERVIEW WITH ROA
> INTERVIEW WITH BONOM
7. Gift economy, 2012
For as short or long as they last, all of these stories become iconic parts of the city’s visual narrative through the generosity of artists giving away their labour with a sense of participation, playfulness, and dialogue. They are full of colour and yet belong properly to an abused grey zone. This is a sentiment expressed beautifully in a subtle project by EMMANUEL BAYON (aka Manu-Tention), who speaks of those concepts through action as he summarises the power of illicit interventions. (This one, at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, is already gone.) His Actions/Réparations, that just won the Jeune artiste Arts Libre prize, consist of calling attention to cracks in the system, and demonstrating how creativity, desire, and will power can enable citizens to take more active responsibility in constructing urban puzzles and transforming our shared spaces. Creative Action = Active Creation!
INTERVIEWS
> INTERVIEW WITH ROA
> INTERVIEW WITH BONOM
Read more about: Expo
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