Tradition says that the musical year takes its first chords in Vienna and the artistic year begins to paint, draw and sculpt itself at the Brafa art and antiques fair in Brussels, a city that boils all year round in that mixture of ultra-modernity, the centuries-old tradition of comic (Tintin has turned 95, here the chronicle is when he turned 90 and he still hasn’t written a chronicle) the surrealism and surroundings of Magritte and this year’s honored star, Paul Delvaux, who is neither surrealist, nor realist, nor idealist, is Delvaux: trains, stations, skeletons and naked women.
Brafa is a special fair for galleries that display their works of art and form an exhibition tradition halfway between the Dutch path and the Parisian splendor. It has its own, highly refined personality and an almost theatrical staging in which the house’s trademark surreal elements decorate the pavilions and converse with the galleries, which range from ancient art, to African tribal art, to historical jewelry and with special care. of the decorative arts under the seal of Art Nouveau.
Tables, lamps, sofas, statuettes and chairs, some with the seal of the incomparable Victor Horta, coexist with ceramics and porcelain from the 17th century and with paintings by Pop Art master Tom Wesselman made from wooden slats. It is true that the star guest is Delvaux, who deserves a separate chapter to appear soon in this section.
As always, Picasso appears at Galérie de la Béraudière in Brussels with Le banderillero, a graphic work from 1959, printed in Vallauris or a special ceramic plate, Bull in the Arena from 1949 in the Dr. Lennart Booij Fine Arts gallery
The painters of the CoBrA group (acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam) show their delicious violence at the hands of Karel Appel or the Danish Asger Jorn. And unique pieces have been seen by artists such as Gustav Klimt (Florian Kolhammer Gallery in Vienna) or the late Fernando Botero (Francis maeren, in Ghent).
Special chapter for Spanish galleries. The Montagut Gallery presents a series of tribal sculptures of great artistic quality. In the Jordi Pascual gallery, he stood out for a sensational Antoni Tàpies (‘Head with glued paper’, 1987) and a Miró (‘Peinture, projet pour une tapisserie, 1973-74).
For his part, Nicolás Cortés, who gives his name to his Madrid gallery, presents, among others, two masterful works. A Lenten still life from the Truyols collection and a carving of the Virgin of Carmel from the mid-18th century by the Guatemalan Blas José Rodríguez.
