Since over a year ago, SO! has been the new window for young Belgian and European fashion designers. Monsieur Bul, Louise Assomo, Jo Devisscher, Nicolas Van Parijs, Caroline Foulon, Conni Kaminski, Ti + Hann... are some of the designers that can be found at the store located a few steps away from avenue Louise and place du Chatelain.
Pics by : Alcides Navarro
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (November 26, 1957-January 9, 1996) was a Cuban artist who grew up in Puerto Rico before moving to New York City. Gonzalez-Torres had his first one-man exhibition of his early text pieces in 1988 at the Rastovsky Gallery (560 Broadway) in Soho. He dreamed of moving to Las Vegas.
His work was the focus of several major museum solo exhibitions in his lifetime and after his death. Retrospectives of his work have been organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (1995), the Sprengel Museum in Hannover, Germany (1997), the Serpentine Gallery in London (2000), and the FLAG Art Foundation in New York (2009).
Gonzalez-Torres was known for his quiet, minimal installations and sculptures. Using materials such as strings of lightbulbs, clocks, stacks of paper, or packaged hard candies, Felix Gonzalez-Torres's work is sometimes considered a reflection of his experience with AIDS. Many of Gonzalez-Torres's installations invite the viewer to take a piece of the work with them: a series of works allow viewers to take packaged candies from a pile in the corner of an exhibition space, while another series consists of stacks of ultrathin sheets of clear plastic or unlimited edition prints, also free for the viewer to take. These installations are replenished by the exhibitor as they diminish. The most pervasive reading of Gonzalez-Torres's work takes the processes his works undergo (lightbulbs expiring, piles of candies dispersing, etc.) as metaphor for the process of dying. Other readings include the issue of Public vs. Private, Identity, and participation in contemporary art. One of his most recognizable works, Untitled (1991) was a billboard installed in twenty-four locations throughout New York City of a monochrome photograph of an unoccupied bed, made after the death of his lover, Ross, to AIDS.
In one interview, he said "When people ask me, 'Who is your public?' I say honestly, without skipping a beat, 'Ross.' The public was Ross. The rest of the people just come to the work."
Gonzalez-Torres died in 1996 due to AIDS related complications. In May 2002, the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation was created. In addition to serving as the official Estate of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, the Foundation hopes to "to foster an appreciation for the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres among the general public, scholars, and art historians." The U.S. representative for the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation is the Andrea Rosen Gallery, which heavily exhibited his work both before and after his death.
In 2007, he was selected as the United States' official representative at the Venice Biennale. (The only other posthumous representative from the United States was Robert Smithson in 1982.)
To be seen currently at WIELS in Brussels untill april the 25th.
Pica Pica is Boris Magotteaux, Manuel Falcata and Jerome Degive, all born and raised in Liege, Belgium.
Figure de proue de l'abstract hip hop français, Wax Tailor a été révélé en 2005 avec son premier album «Tales of the Forgotten Melodies». Il est un de ces artistes inclassables dont l'identité musicale lui est bien propre. Sa musique, à dimension théâtrale est un voyage ou plutôt une langue qu'il utilise pour compter des chroniques sonores teintes de soul, de jazz, de flunk, en flirtant parfois avec une écriture pop classique, le tout baigné dans une atmosphère Hip Hop; l'empreinte ! Sur scène, il convie de prestigieux invités, on le retrouve derrière ses machines accompagné d'une violoncelliste, d'une flûtiste, d'une chanteuse ou d'MC... En poussant les frontières du hip hop, Wax Tailor s'est aussi imposé outre-Atlantique aux côtés de Coldcut, Herbaliser, ou encore RJD2.
Roots back from San Francisco, Sleepy Sun proposes melodies between pop and bluesy and "psyché" rock. They toured with the Fleet Foxes in the United States. Their universe is as chaotic as sexy but almost all very irresistible. On stage between reality and surrealism they show all their creativity and invite us to a colorful hypnotic journey.
Rick Shiver plans a riot for his birthday tonight at Kiko's Basement, 44 rue d'Artois, 1000 Brussels.
This art gallery is also an innovative store and has been made around the idea of using the "shop window" as an invitation to an art journey (giving all its content to the concept of art store).This month, 3 designers from Brussels, Honhon, Panguerreiro and Peter Fait Du Carton settle down at the gallery and propose you the creation of products in very close link to their own environnement, as for each of them either textile, plastic or carton (cardboard). The exhibition goes from december 8 to december 29 from 12h to 18h and until 21h every friday.
During this 3 weeks, the designers will be present to work and to meet the public. They invite you to visit their workshop, for a discussion around a thea. And their creations are very good gift ideas in this christmas time!..
