Europe’s premier art and design fair returns to Brussels Expo for its 71st edition.
One might imagine the follow-up to last year’s landmark 70th anniversary would be a more sedate affair – but not a bit of it. The 71st BRAFA has arrived at Brussels Expo, next to the Atomium, with a host of innovations and what looks set to be a standout edition.
The first impression – and a welcome one – is a noticeable uptick in collectible design and furniture this year. A cohort of exceptional mid-century design gallerists has been curated from across Europe, including several young galleries, in a signal of BRAFA’s engagement with emerging talent. For contemporary design, Objects with Narratives has matured into a must-see cornerstone exhibitor, with this year’s booth dedicated to a solo show by the excellent Ben Storms.
The guest of honour is the King Baudouin Foundation. The royal philanthropic body (and long-term BRAFA partner) celebrates its 50th anniversary this year with an increased presence – and it’s a timely reminder of the critical work they do supporting Belgian heritage and cultural life.
Among the innovations at this year’s fair is a new layout that dedicates a whole zone to food and drink – and hidden among the seafood restaurants and brasseries is the Delen Private Bank Lounge – a supremely stylish oasis from the bustle of the fair and surely the coolest bank lounge you’ll ever visit.
One of BRAFA’s strengths is its ability to surprise. “That’s why BRAFA is BRAFA,” says Mattia Martinelli, director of exhibiting gallery Robertaebasta. “Every year is different. You never know what you’ll find.” This year’s edition includes 147 international galleries from 19 countries, 25 of those here for the first time. Here are some of the specific or thematic highlights that we were struck by this year:
King Baudouin Foundation
Created in 1976, initially in response to the much-mourned loss of a Belgian masterpiece abroad, the King Baudouin Foundation has grown into a national body dedicated to the preservation and support of Belgian art and culture via philanthropy. This year, as guest of honour, the foundation is organising a series of lectures to highlight masterpieces from its collection. As in previous years, they also have their own stand, and it is full of surprises. One of the notable aspects of the Belgian establishment is the value it places on 20th-century design and art; and while Jan Baptist Bonnecroy’s 1664 View of Brussels is an extraordinary and spectacular treasure, it is placed here among more modern, unexpected treasures such as a fantastic 1960s Pieter De Bruyne Arteluce plastic lamp and an Alfred Hendrickx 1950s Sabene armchair.
Also not to be missed is a striking 1907 Léon Spilliaert alongside recent acquisitions such as the 1968 Evelyne Axell artwork L’égocentrique 2 and a 1924 Art Deco carpet (intended for the floor but hung here like a tapestry) by Elisabeth De Saedeleer. It’s worth catching the talks about these latter two works (among many others) at the fair.
Mid-century Brazilian Furniture
Designers such as Jorge Zalszupin, Sergio Rodrigues and Joaquim Tenreiro have been growing in recognition for a while now and are particularly well-represented in BRAFA this year. Galleries well worth visiting for this include Mass Modern Design, Galerie Watteeu, Laurent Schaubroeck and Lisbon’s Galeria Bessa Pereira. All of these galleries report an uptick in interest (if not necessarily sales, which have been strong for several years now) for Brazilian design.
Etienne Feijns, founder of the Netherlands’ Mass Modern Design, has been a leading advocate for Brazilian design since 2020, and a pioneer in the global market. “The buyers come from everywhere – India, Mexico, America, Lebanon,” says Feijns. “Brazilian designers are internationally popular now.”
Ghent gallerist Laurent Schaubroek – who also describes Brazil as the foundation of his collection – is showing a Jorge Zalszupin daybed, gifted by the designer to his sister. “Only two have been made of this,” says Schaubroek. “It’s simple but it’s elegant, and the provenance makes it more powerful.”
Lisbon’s Galeria Bessa Pereira describes itself as specialising in Tropical Modernist Design from the 1940s to the 1970s, with a particular focus on Brazil – which accounts for perhaps 90% of the gallery’s work – and especially Sergio Rodrigues.
Interestingly, the gallery is also showing some noteworthy Portuguese pieces from the 1950s and 1970s in Mozambican wood. Gallery founder Carlos Bessa Pereira explains how Portuguese mid-century design is not a large enough canon to sustain a secondary market, but is well-made and owes a lot to Swedish and French design of the period.
1990s, Post-modern and Colourful Design
Longtime BRAFA exhibitor Robertaebasta has a particularly colourful stand this year. On a post-modern 90s tip is a 1994 display cabinet by Alessandro Mendini: “It was made for the first Swatch shop,” says director Mattia Martinelli. Also from the 90s is a Piero Dorazio oil painting, so colourful it almost looks fluorescent.
Then there is a fabulous orange Fernando and Humberto Campana calfskin Bamboca sofa from Louis Vuitton’s “Objects Nomades” collection, a 2017 limited edition from an original 70s design. From the same collection is a Campana Brothers Cocoon hanging chair, also orange, also a re-edition. Both, says Martinelli, were found in a mountain residence in St. Moritz.
Delen Private Bank
Delen is a main sponsor of BRAFA, and each year, they decorate a suite of rooms at BRAFA with the private bank’s incredible collection of art and design. The rooms are interior designed by Marie-Alix Delen and her daughter Anne-Sophie Delen, with art curation by Marie Genicot, and they are a good example of what happens when excellent taste meets a world-class art and design collection. The rooms showcase the best of Belgian design, with a leaning towards mid-century art and design and some sculptural contemporary designers – including several pieces sourced in collaboration with the Brussels gallery Objects With Narratives.
Objects With Narratives: Faux Jumeaux
Such has been its impact that it’s hard to believe Objects With Narratives has only been around since 2022. Last year marked the gallery’s BRAFA debut (though its work had appeared previously in Delen Private Bank’s rooms at BRAFA). This year, its booth – a must-see – consists of a solo show by the brilliant designer Ben Storms titled Faux Jumeaux.
At first glance, it includes many of his most recognisable pieces – such as his marble In Hale wall pieces, with their distinctive cushion-like folds and crumples. But a closer inspection reveals these to be a painted marble effect. Some are entirely painted; others are the twins from the show’s title: one piece in actual marble, another painted, mounted side-by-side. It’s a brilliant effect, beautifully executed, that challenges our sense of what we consider to be ‘real’. “I tend to copy my own work in different materials,” says Ben Storms.
Storms carries this technique through the collection, to great effect. The Pattern Cut Console Breccia Medicea and Faux Marble, for example, contains a block of actual marble placed on a stand of faux marble. It is difficult to see which is which; and the combined effect is extraordinary.
Several new techniques are also on display here, including a table and a wall, curved and sculptural, with an inner surface of metal and an outer one of marble. Yet the thin layer of marble seems to defy physics. “It seems to be solid,” explains Storms, “but it’s ‘Mosaic Marble’, which I developed two years ago. I make it from a thin layer of a full slab of marble, so the patterning is continuous. I then break it on top of the shape of the metal with a hammer, so that it is able to follow the three-dimensional shape, and connect all the pieces with a resin glue. It becomes almost like a liquid.”
Throughout, Storms’s experimental materiality is on display to great effect – whether his ‘Liquid Silver’ technique of burning silver onto brass, or his use of glass acid to bring out the colour and texture of marble. It’s not to be missed.
Rare Objects
BRAFA is great for seeing unusual oddities, iconic objects and rare pieces, from antiquity to contemporary, and from all over the world. An example this year is a scale model of the China House of Laeken, crafted in Shanghai under the direction of the architect Alexandre Marcel in the early 1900s, and recently restored with the support of the King Baudouin Foundation.
Vasarely and Calder Tapestries
Two artists who are particularly well-represented at BRAFA in recent years are Victor Vasarely and Alexander Calder. You will see excellent examples of both in multiple booths – and not just paintings: examples of tapestries by Vasarely and Calder can be seen in several galleries, including De Wit, Robertaebasta and Galerie Hadjer.
While tapestries might be du jour, both artists translate particularly well to the medium, with the colours especially vibrant in textile. In the Calder above, the blacks – in silk thread – also create a striking textural contrast.
Typically, these tapestries would be in editions limited to around six or eight pieces, and prices are comparable to canvases by the same artists.
1950s Art
There seems to be an uptick in 1950s abstract art across the fair this year. The Delen Private Bank rooms, in particular, include 1950s works by Wout Hoeboer, Jean Rets, Cel Overberghe and Luc Peire. It’s an over-simplification of course, but 1950s abstract art tends to have an introspective quality and serene palette that is quite different to the decades that bookend it.
In more of a foreshadowing of the decade that followed, a vivid 1953 work by the material artist Bram Bogart can be found in the King Baudouin Foundation stand.