Art Brussels

Saturday 5 April
5 – 5:50 PM at the Tribune

With Patrick De Brock, Rodolphe Janssen & Nadia Vilenne.
Moderated by Bernard Marcelis. 

The conversation aims to shed further light on the gallery owner’s perspective on the art of his time, his relationship with artists, and what draws him to a particular work. To what extent does the collector’s role overlap with that of the dealer? And how can one reconcile the professional and personal dimensions of this field—if such a distinction is even necessary? 

About the Speakers :

Patrick De Brock – DE BROCK (Knokke) | For the exhibition Not Everything is for Sale, he proposed the work Hartfaserbild, 1986-2010, by Imi Knoebel.

Patrick De Brock founded his gallery in Antwerp in 1991, before moving shortly thereafter to Knokke. For over thirty-five years, he has championed a form of contemporary abstract painting that might be described as “fundamental”. This includes artists such as Alan Charlton, Günther Förg, Bernard Frize, Julian Opie and Heimo Zobernig. Their work is consistently presented in minimalist displays that have become his signature, also evident in his group presentations at Art Brussels. Since 2017, his son Bertram has joined him, introducing a younger generation of artists including Ethan Cook, Austin Eddy, Beth Letain and Landon Metz. 

Rodolphe Janssen – rodolphe janssen (Brussels) | For the exhibition Not Everything is for Sale, he proposed the work Personenweegschaal, 1973, by Marcem Maeyer

Founded in 1991, Rodolphe Janssen’s gallery initially focused on promoting so-called “artistic” photography (Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Stephen Shore, Sam Samore, Balthasar Burkhard), while also supporting painting. The latter has since become the dominant focus of the gallery’s programme, which is now largely international, while continuing to represent Belgian and affiliated artists among the forty or so in its roster. These include figures such as Marcel Berlanger, Bram Bogart, Wim Delvoye, Kendell Geers, Sanam Khatibi, Thomas Lerooy, Lisa Vlaemminck and Léon Wuidar.

Nadia Vilenne – Nadja Vilenne (Liège) | For the exhibition Not Everything is for Sale, she proposed the work Sunk into Solitude, 2003, by John Murphy 

Nadia Vilenne established her gallery in Liège in 1998, where she presents a Belgian and international programme she describes as ‘rooted in the conceptual and poetic dimensions of art’. She represents about twenty artists, exhibited in a space defined by a vast glass roof, including figures such as Jacques Lizène, Jacqueline Mesmaeker, Werner Cuvelier and John Murphy, as well as Aglaia Konrad, Suchan Kinoshita, Olivier Foulon and Michel Ceulers. The gallery also pursues a significant research and publishing programme aimed, among other things, at highlighting the vitality of the Liège art scene over the past fifty years.  

Moderator : 

Bernard Marcelis 
Trained as a historian, art critic and exhibition curator, Bernard Marcelis regularly contributes to art press (Paris), l’art même (Brussels), and The Art Newspaper (Edition française, Paris). 
In Belgium, he was first a member and later president of the Visual Arts Advisory Commission (CCAP) at the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (from 2007 to 2020). In Paris, he served as artistic advisor for the HSBC Prize for Photography in 2010. 
He is the author of monographs on André Cadere (for whom he also compiled the catalogue raisonné and edited the Lettres sur un travail), Bernar Venet, Jan Fabre, Johan Muyle, Frédéric Flamand, Gérard Garouste, Bernard Plossu, among others. 
He has (co-)curated several solo exhibitions (Marcel Broodthaers, André Cadere, Peter Downsbrough, Gilbert Fastenaekens, Gérard Garouste, Marin Kasimir, Claude Rutault, Jan Saudek, Bernar Venet, etc.) in Belgium, Germany, Paris and New York, as well as numerous group exhibitions including the France KunstArt.be cycle (2008), the largest exhibition of French contemporary art ever staged in Belgium (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Musée d’Ixelles, La Centrale, ISELP, ING Art Centre and Les Abattoirs in Mons).