15—18.04.27 Brussels Expo

Art Brussels

’68 Forward Prize

main partner

Delen Bank

68 Forward is a section dedicated to artistic practices from 1968 to 2000. Reflecting the diversity, experimentation, and departure from traditional conventions that have shaped contemporary art since the inception of Art Brussels, the section brings together works by both established artists and artists whose practices have remained under the radar.

The ’68 Forward Prize is awarded by a professional jury to the gallery presenting the most outstanding booth in the section. The winning gallery receives €5,000.

The ’68 Forward Prize is supported by Natan

2026 '68 Forward Prize Winner

Winning Gallery: Einspach & Czapolai Fine Art with their presentation of Orshi Drozdik works

Jury Statement:

We welcome Art Brussels’ initiative to devote a section to artists whose work is important, even if it has not always been recognised at its true value. We also extend our thanks to all the galleries for the quality of their work and the commitment they show.

The 68 Forward Prize is awarded to Einspach & Czapolai Fine Art, who represent Orshi Drozdik. Through a feminist practice rooted in performance, printmaking and drawing, the artist uses the figure of the model to question codes of representation, regimes of the gaze and the construction of knowledge, with remarkable critical precision.

Einspach & Czapolai Fine Art booth at Art Brussels 2026

2026 Jury Members

Alain Lombard

President of Lee Ufan Foundation in Arles and General Delegate of ADIAF, Arles – Prix Marcel Duchamp, Paris

Alain Lombard, born in 1956, worked from 1982 to 2023 in the French Ministry of Culture. He was General Secretary of the French Academy in Rome (Italy), French Cultural Attaché in Budapest (Hungary), General Director of Villa Arson (National Art School in Nice), General Administrator of Orsay Museum in Paris, Director of Collection Lambert (Contemporary Art Museum in Avignon).

Since 2024, he is President of Lee Ufan Foundation in Arles and General Delegate of ADIAF, an association of French Contemporary Art Collectors organizing the Marcel Duchamp Prize.

He published two books, about the French Ministry of Culture and about Cultural Diplomacy. 

María Inés Rodríguez

Director of the Walter & Nicole Leblanc Foundation, Brussels and Artistic Director of Tropical Papers, France

María Inés Rodríguez is a Colombian-French curator based in Brussels. She is the Director of the Walter & Nicole Leblanc Foundation and the Artistic Director of Tropical Papers. She previously held leadership and curatorial positions at major institutions including CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, MASP in São Paulo, MUAC in Mexico City, MUSAC in Spain, and the Jeu de Paume in Paris. 

Deeply committed to promoting dialogue between artistic creation and its historical, political, and social contexts, she has consistently advocated for the interconnectedness of art with broader cultural implications, both locally and globally. 

She currently serves on the Boards of the Musée LaM – Lille Métropole and the Fondation Martell (France); has served as a jury member for The Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award Programme at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Norway) since 2019 and is a member of the Acquisitions Committee of KANAL–Centre Pompidou in Brussels. 

Portrait by © Danh Vo

Ilse Roosens

Curator, Mu.ZEE, Ostend

Ilse Roosens is a curator at Mu.ZEE in Ostend, the museum for art in Belgium from 1880 until tomorrow. Decolonial, ecofeminist and post-capitalist topics lay the groundwork for her work both inside and outside the museum. Ilse Roosens questions existing power structures and focuses on the social responsibility of institutions, governments and artists. Co-authorship and polyphony are focal points of her working ethic. She is actively rethinking the formats for presenting collections by experimenting with transhistorical concepts.  

At Mu.ZEE she has curated exhibitions such as Aglaia Konrad: KAMMERSPIEL (2023); Maarten Vanden Eynde: Digging up the Future (2021) together with Katerina Gregos; Orla Barry & Els Dietvorst: Wintrum Frod (2019), Frans Masereel and Contemporary Art: Images of Resistance (2017), and Carsten Höller: Videoretrospective with Two Lightmachines (2016). She co-curated the performance programmes  The Longest Day (2024; 2026) and Chambres d’O (2019; 2020), contributed to publications such as Friends in a Field: Conversations with Raoul De Keyser (2022), and is currently collaborating with Suchan Kinoshita on an art commission taking the form of the residency ‘Mu.ZEE APOTHEEK ATELIER’ (2025–2028).  

Ilse Roosens has curated a number of projects independently, and has written essays for different publications, galleries and magazines, most recently for the monograph of Elen Braga (MER. Books, 2025).  

In 2018 she co-founded the MEER curatorial collective, focusing on artists working with video and performance art. Ilse Roosens has been a guest lecturer at Kunstakademie, Münster; HISK/Higher Institute for Fine Arts, Ghent/Brussels; Level Five, Brussels; Cas-co, Leuven; KU Leuven; Ghent University, LUCA Brussels; LUCA Ghent; Sint-Lucas Antwerp and KULAK Kortrijk. She has juried the Marianne Van Vyve Prize (2023) and the Lichen Curatorial Prize (2021) and is vice president of the Friends of S.M.A.K. Ghent. Prior to Mu.ZEE she worked at S.M.A.K. Ghent and Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp. 

Portrait by © Buro Bonito

Previous Prize Winners

2025 — Ewa Opalka Gallery 
2024 — Richard Saltoun Gallery