Brief notes on Art Brussels 2026

article

DATE

11 May 2026

AUTHOR

Maria Inês Mendes

Brief notes on Art Brussels 2026

AUTHOR

Maria Inês Mendes

On my way to Brussels for another edition of Art Brussels, I found myself thinking about how I would always like to be able to visit cities more than once. Because such a return visit would allow me to position myself somewhere between complete unfamiliarity and a familiarity that is still incomplete. And, above all, because it is in that gap that it becomes possible to draw comparisons, to observe the differences between what I remembered and what has, in the meantime, changed.

I arrived in Brussels on 22 April, and – unlike the previous year – the sky was blue. The fair, now in its 42nd edition, remained at its usual venue, the Brussels Expo Hall, at the top of Heysel Park, and retained its core values. At a press conference, Nele Verhaeren – director of Art Brussels – outlined the main objective of this edition: to build on the work carried out in previous editions, consolidating the fair as a mediator and meeting place whilst simultaneously strengthening its close relationship with the city and its main cultural institutions. This intention was particularly evident outside the fair itself: at Gallery Night, through the programme of openings spread across the city’s galleries, but also in the Discovery Acquisition Prize, which this year took the form of an acquisition fund aimed at integrating a work by an emerging artist into a public collection. The selected piece will be added to the collection of the Museum of Ixelles and will be presented at the museum’s inaugural exhibition, scheduled for 2027, following more than eight years of renovation.

Beyond the differences between editions, Art Brussels seems to establish itself through a sense of continuity. In 2026, 139 galleries from 26 countries took part in the fair, spread across five sections: Prime, Solo, ’68 Forward, Discovery and the new Horizons. Alongside the usual established names were emerging artists and galleries, as well as a series of projects with a strong curatorial component.

Included in the Prime section, the stand by Rodolphe Janssen stands out, showcasing a series of paintings by Patrizio di Massimo. In In Between Us, we see a couple set against palace-like interiors, in dialogue with references to Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio Morandi and Giacomo Balla. The compositions are organised according to a restrained, almost sterile, symmetry and order, but the presence of a few pigeons in flight and the artificiality of the framing seem to disrupt this stability. In a different direction, the Pedrami Gallery, dedicated to art from the Middle East, presents a photographic series by Klaartje Lambrechts, in which bodies covered in fabric mould themselves to the movement of dance. These images evoke the prohibition of dance in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and, in doing so, reopen that same interval between restraint and freedom.

In the Discovery section, a highlight is the dialogue between Francisca Valador and Thomas Braida, presented by the Matèria and MONITOR galleries. The works are displayed in alternating order, creating small scenes on an almost domestic scale, populated by figures and animals that seem to inhabit the interstices of the space. Meanwhile, Michiel Deneckere’s paintings, presented by EDJI Gallery, draw on an experience of moving to Brussels and revisit the idea of inhabiting (of inhabiting through art), transforming everyday episodes into compositions of a silent strangeness. In dark tones, and with the figures surrounded by an aura, the body of work is constructed as a collection of “stamps”: small visual units and motifs that traverse the city’s imagination – an ornate door in the Gothic style, a clerical figure with a sword and a horse that (though not white) indirectly evokes David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

There is also an unexpected sense of familiarity in encountering some Portuguese galleries, such as Galeria Francisco Fino, Galeria Vera Cortês, Galeria Filomena Soares and Salgadeiras, which account for around 5% of the galleries taking part in the fair. Among the diverse proposals, objects and images reappear that lean towards a certain phantasmagoria: a bronze backpack crossed by a sunflower, by João Motta Guedes, suggesting the weight of carrying happiness; the carcass of a goat in a cold room, by José Pedro Cortes; the photographt of Daniela Ângelo, which - like an Ouroboros – closes in on itself; and also the poetic-experimental exercises of Daniel Blaufuks, in which instant photography, collage and text function as tools for a persistent observation of the world.

Taken as a whole, a clear pattern seems to emerge, characterised by these very themes: a focus on the suspended gesture, the presence of memory, domestic interiors, figures situated between intimacy and strangeness, and a recurring emphasis on colour as a structuring element – perhaps as a counterpoint to a certain austerity that defines the present day. Even so, this inclination sometimes seems to take on a decorative tone, visible above all in the predominance of painting over installation or digital practices. These are the threads that run through Art Brussels 2026 and which, in a way, help us establish a meaningful and thematic continuity between the different sections.

On the other hand, whilst the fair’s guiding principles remain recognisable, there are also many notable differences. Firstly, the fair has been reorganised and is now concentrated in a single hall, as part of a strategy to achieve greater spatial cohesion – as Nele Verhaeren emphasised. In addition, a new section, Horizons, has been introduced, occupying Hall 6 of Brussels Expo, continuing a programme dedicated to large-scale works.

Curated by Devrim Bayar, curator at KANAL – Centre Pompidou, this section brings together a selection of works that could not be presented in the usual gallery booth formats, featuring artists such as Aglaia Konrad, Elen Braga, Ymen Berhouma, Jacqueline de Jong, Pao Hui Kao, Oswald Oberhuber and Zuzanna Czebatul. The selection stands out for the formal diversity of the works, whose themes oscillate between irony and humour, particularly evident in Elen Braga’s monumental tapestry, originally installed beneath the Arc de Triomphe in the Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels to temporarily replace the Belgian flag on International Women’s Day, and a very precise focus on the architectural element, the idea of construction and its potential destabilisation. Examples of this include the works of Zuzanna Czebatul, who presents a set of inflatable columns evoking fragments of collapsing ruins, and Pao Hui Kao, who constructs a meditative space where folded tracing paper, rice glue and Urushi lacquer challenge the limits of construction.

Also worth noting is the launch of the project Not Everything is for Sale, curated by Bernard Marcelis and Anne Vierstraete, who invited 15 Belgium-based gallery owners with over 25 years’ experience to choose a work they would never sell, and to explain their choice. In this context, Xavier Hufkens shows us a piece by Walter Swenenne, received as an 18th birthday present, whose significance exceeds its artistic value. The image is simple: an elephant carrying a house on its back, which, like much of the artist’s work, defies a fixed interpretation. “The house perhaps representing the gallery, carried on the elephant’s back”, explains the gallery owner, adding: “I first encountered Walter’s work at eighteen… in retrospect, it foreshadowed my professional life as a gallerist.” Thirty years passed between the moment he received this piece and the date of the artist’s first exhibition at the gallery, in 2014. Greta Meert, meanwhile, presents The Guitarist (1987), by Jeff Wall, highlighting not only the artist’s intellectual acuity and visual imagination, but also the way his work progressively infiltrates everyday life. Characterised by a multi-layered cinematic staging, the work accompanied her son’s growth through his teenage years and remained on display in her home.

The choices made by the various gallerists are personal and reflect distinct approaches to art. What we see, therefore, is a glimpse into personal histories – the little curiosities, the fortuitous encounters and the biographical twists – that bring the gallerist closer to a work, to an artist, but also to the decades of art history and the evolution of the contemporary art market. What we see is, above all, an alternative: a different perspective on a profession which, even in the context of an art fair and in the face of the growing professionalisation of the art ecosystem, seems to retain a human dimension at its core.

Art Brussels took place from 23 to 26 April, and has already announced the dates for the next edition, scheduled for 15 to 18 April 2027.

Umbigo travelled to Brussels at the invitation of Art Brussels.

BIOGRAPHY

Maria Inês Mendes is studying for a master's degree in Art Criticism and Curatorship at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. In 2024, she completed her degree in Communication Sciences at NOVA University Lisbon. She has written about cinema on CINEblog, a page promoted by NOVA's Institute of Philosophy. She is currently responsible for UMBIGO online, where she publishes regularly, and collaborates with BEAST - International Film Festival.

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