INSIGHTS | Testimonies galleries post-fair experience

The 37th edition of Art Brussels closed a bit more than a month ago, having seen significant sales to local and international collectors.

Many booths had almost sold within the first day of the fair including Patrick de Brock (Knokke) who sold works by Ethan Cook, Kristof De Clercq (Ghent) who sold works by artists such as Mario De Brabandere and Johan De Wit and Ceysson & Bénétière (Paris, New York, Luxembourg, Saint-Etienne). In the DISCOVERY section, the solo presentations were very popular. Derouillon (Paris) sold out their solo presentation by Alexandre Benjamin Navet, and so did Lehmann+Silva (Porto) and Stems (Brussels, Luxembourg).

During the fair rodolphe janssen (Brussels) sold four works by Thomas Lerooy as well as works by Luisa Gagliardi, Douglas Eynon, Marcel Berlanger, Betty Tomkings, Gert & Uwe Tobias and all the works by Sanam Khatibi. Mendes Wood DM (Sao Paolo, New York, Brussels) reported numerous sales including works by Daniel Steegmann Mangrané. Blain | Southern (London, Berlin, New York) reported strong sales including a Jonas Burgert piece. Xavier Hufkens sold numerous works among which their solo presentation of Lesley Vance that won the SOLO Prize. Lelong & Co. (Paris, New York) said “we are extremely satisfied, we love Art Brussels, it was our best participation yet at the fair with very strong sales”.

Very successful sales were reported by the galleries participating in REDISCOVERY, presenting works from the 20th century, such as Ivan (Bucharest) with Paul Neagu, QG (Brussels) with Georg Karl Pfahler and Antoine Laurentin (Paris, Brussels) with Willy Antoons, André Willequet among others. Orsolya Hegedus of acb Gallery (Budapest) told us that “Art Brussels had a great atmosphere with high quality presentations and sophisticated audience. We had meaningful conversations and made good contacts. The Rediscovery section was a fantastic context for our presentation that concentrated special attention both from professionals and collectors”.

In the Invited section, Simon Delobel from Paid by the artist (Antwerp) sold numerous works and said that the fair was “and opportunity that has paid off, we are very grateful to Art Brussels for this platform”. Other with strong sales were High Art (Paris) and Alice Black (London) who did several sales during her first ever fair participation since establishing the gallery in May 2017.

Other galleries that reported strong sales were Thomas Brambilla (Bergamo), Gladstone (New York, Brussels), Ronchini (London), Nino Mier (Los Angeles), and Tim Van Laere Gallery (Antwerp).

To know the full success of fair for a gallery, one needs to look further in time and follow up a few weeks after the fair. Therefore, as part Art Brussels Insights, we spoke with galleries that participated in Art Brussels about their post-fair experience.

Ayelet Yanai, director of dépendance (Brussels) confirmed “We continued to do strong sales after the fair of works by Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys, Peter Wächtler and Will Benedict”.

Sofie Van de Velde, owner of Gallery Sofie Van de Velde (Antwerp) “For us, a participation in a fair is especially successful when we sell to new clients during and after the fair, which has been the case at Art Brussels 2019. After the fair we sold works by Guy Mees, Willy De Sauter, Perry Roberts, Ilse D’Hollander and Charlotte Posenenske. It was a successful fair for us.”

Yoeri Vanlangendonck, owner of Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery (Antwerp) told us that “Art Brussels 2019 was a success, not only because of the sales and the press attention, but also because of the interesting international contacts we made. After the fair we sold to collectors from London. Moreover, new customers from Brussels visited the gallery in Antwerp because of the fair”.

Harlan Levey of Harlan Levey Projects (Brussels) confirmed that “In the short term, we were pleased that the fair resulted in sales for all of our artists and that this continued into May when we placed more works of Amelie Bouvier to people we had started discussing with during Art Brussels. For Emmanuel Van der Auwera there were also post fair sales and great momentum for September when he’ll have solo exhibitions at the gallery and Botanique Museum as well as contributing to a group exhibition at WIELS”.