Don’t we all love a new and intriguing technology? Being hailed as the technology to revolutionize the production process, Rapid Prototyping has to live up to its promise! With the help of the Leuven based Materialise Group, this technology is on its way to change everything. Through its unique .MGX by Materialise division for design products, Materialise has opened the market for customized Rapid Manufacturing. Recently the company launched a new service called i.materialise. This on-line service offeres customized 3D creation and 3D printing service to you. The start of a consumers revolution? Why driving to Ikea if you can design your one-of-a-kind lampshade or picture frame from your sofa? Read the rest of this entry »
11
Aug
2010
Aug
2010
Materialise Me
28
Jul
2010
Jul
2010
Rosas Danst Rosas
In 1983 Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker was a revelation in the modern dance scene because of her repetitive, minimalistic choreography. Her extremely powerful composition, Rosas danst Rosas was also the start of the Rosas group; the four female dancers – Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Michèle Anne De Mey, Fumiyo Ikeda and Nadine Ganase – were the first members of the new dance company. Read the rest of this entry »
13
Jul
2010
Jul
2010
Arne Quinze’s sculptures
Burning Man Festival 2006,Black Rock Desert, Nevada: the place where it al started for Arne Quinze’s wooden stick sculptures. It was there that Quinze decided to create and burn his first sculpture Uchronia, a 30m high and 60m wide wooden construction. Typical for Quinze’s strademark sculptures are the individual timbers scattered and suspended throughout the structure. An intricate elegance created by the thousands of delicate connections holding together the sculpture. Quinze’s artwork is mainly about contrasts, contradiction, evolution, speed and time. Read the rest of this entry »
8
Jul
2010
Jul
2010
Veerle’s graphic design selection
It’s not only ILoveBelgium who promotes this little country. Veerle Pieters is doing the same since 2000 with her inspirational blog. This freelance graphic designer has an eye for Belgian Graphic design Talent. As she mentions herself “throughout the history of print and, later, graphic design, we’ve amassed a formidable body of work: elegant to quirky and playful, edgy and modern to gloriously antiquarian”. She collected the best of the best to be admired in her “Belgian Graphic Design” section. Read the rest of this entry »
27
Jun
2010
Jun
2010
Filip Dujardin – Fictions
Although he’s from Ghent, a historical city filled with picturesque buildings, that’s not the sort of world photographer Filip Dujardin creates in his own photography work. Instead he has taken photographs of nondescript, often post-modern buildings and remixed them using Photoshop to create strange hybrids. The results may be fantastical, but could never be described as whimsical. Read the rest of this entry »
16
Jun
2010
Jun
2010
Chris Dercon appointed new Director of Tate Modern
Yesterday June 15th Tate Modern announced today that Chris Dercon, Director of the Haus der Kunst, Munich, has been appointed the new Director of Tate Modern. Another proove that Belgians have a major influence on fashion & art. Read the rest of this entry »
27
May
2010
May
2010
Bonom: graffiti art
Britain has Banksy, Belgium has Bonom! Since 2006, Bonom showcases his own impressive style: going for big, remarkable, sketch-like, fluid lines that end up in animal and skeleton drawings. For these he searches grey and basic buildings in the city centre of Brussels. Hanging from a rope he paints the night away. This gave Bonom the past years the unofficial title of a town legend. Read the rest of this entry »
24
May
2010
May
2010
Pantone Hotel Brussels
Brussels has a Pantone Hotel, and it’s a world wide exclusive! Pantone’s claim to fame began 45 years ago with its revolutionary color matching system that allowed designers to reproduce accurate color anywhere in the world. Today the company is branching out and moving into lifestyle- oriented industries using the same color numbering system. As the company began expanding, Pantone decided to construct a hotel as part of the new “Pantone Universe” campaign. For this they revamped a sixties building in uptown Brussels. Designed by Michel Penneman and Oliver Hannaert, the hotel fully embodies the company, as “the hotel of colors… showcases the color of emotion with a distinctive hue on each colorous guest floor.” Read the rest of this entry »
12
May
2010
May
2010
Liu Bolin at Young Gallery
In the ‘camouflage’ series of contemporary Chinese artist Liu Bolin, he creates performances, using the human body as sculpture. Bolin’s interested in the human body and its position within social surroundings – how to blend it into the environment or make it stand out within a given social-cultural landscape. His work is based on the actual location in which he places the human body, taking into account visual and emotional elements as well as the social codes which are exhibited through his selected locations. It explores human nature and animal instincts which features Chinese citizens painted to blend into their surroundings. The subjects are covered head to toe in paint, camouflaging themselves in front of the Chinese flag, a billboard or down town Beijing. Read the rest of this entry »
25
Apr
2010
Apr
2010
Villa Empain – The Boghossian Foundation
The, just renovated, Villa Empain is certainly one of the most beautiful architectural masterpieces of Art Deco in Brussels. In 1930, at the age of 21, Baron Louis Empain had this private mansion of 2500 square meters built, on the prestigious Franklin Roosevelt Avenue. It is to the Swiss architect Michel Polak, that this splendid mansion is entrusted to. Michel Polak is already well known in Belgium: one of his major works consisted of the famous “Residence Palace” (1928) and the institute George Eastman in the Leopold Parc (the future Museum of Europe).
The project conceived on a property of 55 acres includes a monumental villa with four granite polished facades, a garden surrounding a decorated swimming pool of pergola and a caretaker’s lodge. The modern and luxurious character of this construction generated enthusiasm and curiosity. It is true that the diversity and the quality of the materials used (marble, polished granite, bronzes, wrought iron, glasses and precious woods), the refinement of the details and the coherence of the whole imposing simple lines has contributed from the start to its patrimonial value. Read the rest of this entry »
5
Apr
2010
Apr
2010
Canvas collection RTBF
After a successful first edition the Canvas collection is back. This time paired up with Wallonia, resulting in a new name, referring the two cultural Belgian television channels hosting the show: Canvas collection RTBF.
This new season keeps the known elements. You get acquainted with numerous artists from all over the country, displaying a diverse pallet of contemporary art. Going through Belgians biggest and well know museums to follow the complete process, from the selections over the exhibition to the awards. Focusing on dialogues between the candidates, the exhibitors, the professionals and most of all the judges.
7900 artists competed with 24.000 works, 300 are selected by the national judges to be displayed at the Bozar and one of them will go home with the main price of 10 000 euro.
But of course we wouldn’t be I Love Belgium if we hadn’t our own selection, after the jump you can see our 10 selected works (in random order)! Enjoy… Read the rest of this entry »
31
Mar
2010
Mar
2010
The Verbeke Foundation
Where do you find a private art domain where culture, nature and ecology go hand in hand? In Kemzeke (yes, it’s in the middle of nowhere) The Verbeke Foundation offers all of this, since 2007, when it first opened its doors. They give chances to young artist while holding an impressive collection of modern and contemporary art.
With 12 hectares (29.7 acres) of scenic area and 20,000 m² (4,9 acres) covered spaces, the Foundation is one of the largest private initiatives for contemporary art throughout Europe. The warehouses of the former Verbeke transport agency were transformed into unique exposition halls. One of the buildings was furnished to exhibit Verbeke’s extraordinary collection of collages and assemblages. Containing works of Dadaists, surrealists, constructivists while mainly focusing on the Coll’ Art movement. Read the rest of this entry »
25
Mar
2010
Mar
2010
Heaven of delight – Jan Fabre
Where the Vatican-city has the Sistine Chapel with the stunning and worldwide admired Michelangelo ceiling, then Belgium has he Royal Palace with its grandiose beetle infected ceiling!
At the invitation of most unlikely hosts, the king and queen of Belgium, the artist Jan Fabre decorated, back in 2002, the principal hall with the wing cases of almost a million Asian jewel beetles. Read the rest of this entry »
11
Mar
2010
Mar
2010
Frances Goodman at AEROPLASTICS contemporary
As from tomorrow March 11th, AEROPLASTICS Contemporary welcomes artist Frances Goodman. The South-African artist, who also did a post-graduate at the HISK (Higher Institute for Fine Art) in Antwerp, works with everyday issues such as relationships, violence, personal impressions and memories, all of which seem to based on collective emotions that are experienced individually, and feel deeply personal and unique to everyone. Her subjects are deeply personal but by making it broadly based, she makes it accessible and familiar to the listener.
19
Feb
2010
Feb
2010
Alice Gallery
The Alice Gallery in Brussels is a hotspot for street art. It’s a gallery, a book store and a gadget store. Although ‘gadget’ seems a little denigrating to me. You can feast your eyes on the best street artists of the moment (So Me, Samuel François, Sixeart, Pica Pica…) or splurge on some great coffee table books. They also have great t-shirts with arty prints (if you can’t buy the art, you buy the t-shirt!), lomo cameras and other übercool gadgets. A scoop for I Love Belgium: Alice Gallery is moving! They will have their final exhibition in May and will leave the Dansaert street to move to the Rue du Pays du Liège, a sidestreet of the Vlaamse Steenweg. The gallery (which is currently in the basement) will be much more prominent in this venue. Be sure to check out one of their exhibits or events. Current exhibition is by Elzo Durt.
14
Feb
2010
Feb
2010
Felix Gonzalez-Torres retrospective at Wiels
I Love Belgium checked out the traveling retrospective of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ oeuvre at Wiels, including both rarely seen and more known artworks, while proposing an experimental form for the exhibition that is indebted to the artist’s own radical conception of the artwork. More pictures and the rest of story after the jump.
13
Feb
2010
Feb
2010
Save Wiels
Wiels is an international laboratory for the creation and the diffusion of contemporary art. Focusing on visual arts, but granting a particular attention to the crossings and interactions with other disciplines, the centre wishes to present contemporary art in all its diversity and to offer a permanent dialogue with the developments and the most recent debates of the art world. Read the rest of this entry »
27
Jan
2010
Jan
2010
Studio Job gallery in Antwerp
Antwerp based design studio Studio Job (www.studiojob.be) opened a gallery in Antwerp late last year. Job Smeets calls it a ‘chameleonic’ space, somewhere between a gallery, platform and refuge for their work and others they admire. The industrial space is situated in a former cigar factory, close to museum quarter in the city’s south. Read the rest of this entry »
18
Jan
2010
Jan
2010
Jean-Baptiste Biche is strutting his stuff
Brussels based multi-disciplinary artist Jean-Baptiste Biche cannot be pigeonholed. Graphic designer, party promoter, performance artist,… you name it. He did it all. His latest projects includes the artwork for Belgian artist An Pierlé newest album (www.white-velvet.com), a series of prints for Belgian fashion brand Sandrina Fasoli (www.sandrinafasoli.com) and performances in Brussels, Geneva and more cities to be announced. This guy is one to be watched…
© I love Belgium
18
Jan
2010
Jan
2010
Frida Kahlo y su mundo at BOZAR
The Brussels Centre for Fine Arts BOZAR is continuously proving it is an art hotspot. Newest exhibtion is again one not be missed: Frida Kahlo y su mundo, showing the works of Mexico’s most famous painter who lived a very turbulent life. A tragic bus accident at just 17 led to a series of operations throughout her life, at a time when medicine was just feeling its way. She had several miscarriages and a passionate marriage with Diego Rivera, the great painter of the Revolution. 19 paintings, an etching, six drawings, and a number of photographs bear witness to her brilliant contribution to the symbolist and surrealist movements. Frida Kahlo y su mundo – 16/01-18/04 www.bozar.be
© I love Belgium
