Art Brussels 2025: A strong and expansive artistic programme marks the 41st edition of the vibrant contemporary art fair

24 - 27 April 2025, Brussels Expo

Press Conference: Thursday 24 April 2025, 10.30am
Preview and Vernissage: Thursday 24 April 2025
Friday 25 April – Sunday 27 April 2025

Art Brussels returns for its 41st edition from 24 to 27 April 2025, bringing together 165 galleries from 35 countries in five curated sections - Prime, Solo, '68 Forward, Discovery and Invited. In addition to showcasing more than 800 artists, the fair introduces a curated and compelling selection of artistic projects that expands its programme and brings all forms of contemporary art into focus.

Art Brussels 2025 introduces two major new initiatives: The Screen, a curated video art programme featuring works selected by Eliel Jones (Curator of Performance and Time-based Media at KANAL-Centre Pompidou) and Brussels-based filmmaker Alex Reynolds, and Monumental Artworks, an exhibition of large-scale installations curated by public art expert Carine Fol (City of Brussels). These projects reflect the fair’s commitment to fostering experimentation and providing a dynamic platform for artistic expression.

Beyond these new additions, visitors will encounter striking site-specific projects, including a special entrance installation by Céline Condorelli (represented by Galeria Vera Cortês, Lisbon) and Carton plein, an archival project led by Juan d'Oultremont. The KickCancer Collection also returns, this year featuring curator Zoë Gray (Bozar), who will activate the project during the fair. Additionally, the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles presents young artist Maëlle Dufour with a monumental installation, while Maison Ruinart will present guest artist Lélia Demoisy with new works made in the context of Conversations with Nature.

The 75th anniversary of the Belgian Art Prize will be marked by the special exhibition Back to the Future in the Stibbe Lounge of the fair, and SOFAM will present the artists which were granted with the recently founded Pomona Art Prize. 

With this dynamic and diverse programme, Art Brussels 2025 reaffirms its role as a leading platform for contemporary art, bringing together artists, galleries, collectors, and curators who want to explore contemporary art in all its forms in an environment that encourages discovery and dialogue.

Enhanced Prizes: Strengthening Support for Artists and Galleries
Art Brussels is proud to announce a new vision for two of its most significant awards

Discovery Acquisition Prize, supported by Moleskine

Formerly the Discovery Prize, this award now focuses on supporting museum collections. Instead of rewarding the winning gallery for the best booth presentation in the Discovery section, the prize will now take the form of an increased acquisition budget—up to €10,000 (previously €5,000)—for purchasing an artwork for a museum collection.

For Art Brussels 2025, the selected institution will be the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, with Inga Rossi-Schrimpf (Director of Collections) and Pierre-Yves Desaive (Curator) joining the previously announced jury – Marjolaine Lévy (Independent Curator), Tim Roerig (Curator, Z33), and Axel Wieder (Director of the Berlin Biennale).

This revised format strengthens the prize’s impact by providing meaningful recognition and support to the artist, the gallery, and the museum.
Solo Prize, supported by TheMerode

Since its establishment in 2008, the Solo Prize has recognised outstanding artistic presentations at Art Brussels. For Art Brussels 2025, the prize money will be increased from €10,000 to €15,000, further enhancing support for the winning artist. The jury members of the Solo Prize are Ann Demeester (Director, Kunsthaus Zürich), Jérôme Sans (Independant Curator), and Bruno Verbergt (Director, MuZee, Permeke Museum, and Luc Peire museum).

GALLERIES 2025

Art Brussels 2025 selected galleries in numbers:

165 galleries from 35 countries in 5 sections: 
108 galleries in Prime
27 Solo presentations 
14 galleries in ‘68 Forward
36 galleries in Discovery
7 Invited

61% are returning galleries (101 galleries in total) – 39% new participating galleries (64 new galleries)

31 galleries with a space in Brussels take part in the fair.

Distribution per countries: 26% of galleries from Belgium, 17% from France, 13% of galleries from outside of Europe, 8% from Germany, 8% from Mediterranean countries*.

*The list of participating countries is based on one location per gallery, determined by the location from which the gallery applied, even if some galleries have multiple spaces in different countries.

Full list of galleries can be found here:

20250321_ArtBrussels2025_PressRelease_ENG.pdf

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ARTISTIC PROJECTS

Portal A.
Artistic Intervention by Céline Condorelli

For Art Brussels 2025, Céline Condorelli (b. 1974) has created a site-specific installation that reimagines the entrance to the fair. Entering an art fair mirrors the experience of stepping onto a theatrical stage. Through the use of curtains, Condorelli draws a connection between the act of arrival and the ‘entrée’, the stage—the Bühne. On this stage, exhibitors and visitors perform their respective positions in relation to each other.
The Screen
A New Platform for Video Art

Art Brussels 2025 is proud to launch The Screen, a new curated screening programme dedicated to video art. This initiative offers participating galleries the opportunity to present a video work by one of their artists, fostering deeper engagement with time-based media within the fair’s dynamic setting.
A professional jury, composed of Eliel Jones (Curator of Performance and Time-based Media at KANAL-Centre Pompidou) and Brussels-based filmmaker Alex Reynolds, has carefully reviewed the submissions by galleries and selected six standout video projects. Each selected work will be given a dedicated one-hour screening slot at the Tribune at the fair, ensuring maximum visibility for fair attendees. With two screenings per day from Friday to Sunday, The Screen establishes a focused space for video art, enriching the visitor experience and highlighting the medium’s significance in contemporary artistic practice.
Monumental Artworks
A Showcase of Large-Scale Installations

Art Brussels 2025 is excited to present Monumental Artworks, a new initiative dedicated to large-scale sculptures and installations. This special selection will feature ambitious works displayed both outdoors in front of Hall 5 and indoors in designated open spaces within the fair, creating striking focal points throughout the event.
Curated by Carine Fol, an expert in art in public spaces for the City of Brussels, Monumental Artworks provides participating galleries with the opportunity to exhibit pieces that transcend the traditional booth format.
Conversations with Nature
By Lélia Demoisy for Maison Ruinart

Lélia Demoisy is the guest artist for Conversations with Nature, the artistic project by Maison Ruinart art Art Brussels 2025. Demoisy's sculptures and installations examine our relationship with nature and the living. Often associated with steel, the tree occupies a fundamental place in her work. For Conversations with Nature, Demoisy has created a series of artworks echoing the Maison’s commitment to biodiversity.
OYAS 
by Maëlle Dufour, curated by Dorothée Duvivier with the support of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles

Since its beginnings, Maëlle Dufour (1994) has focused on creating sculptural and monumental installations that question the destruction of living resources and the environment by humans. Her works often reflect an era and a history, and bear testimony to what persists.
For the special context of the Art Brussels fair, Maëlle Dufour is producing hundreds of ceramic Oyas whose shape and material are reminiscent of plastic jerrycans. These jars, usually buried near plants as an ancestral soil irrigation system, sound the alarm about the disappearance of water, now quoted on the stock market in the same way as oil.
Behind Layers 
By Art Brussels’ Main Partners – Delen Private Bank & Bank Van Breda

The two sister banks, which together support Art Brussels as the principal partners, will present the exhibition Behind Layers in their shared lounge:
“Delen Private Bank and Bank Van Breda share an ideology, a belief in being straightforward, grounded and transparent. This is how we create peace of mind for our clients. Our space at Art Brussels, where elementary shapes take center stage, reflects that belief and simultaneously illustrates our love for capturing the essence. The artworks and designs, carefully curated by Delen Private Bank and Bank Van Breda, invite you to take a breath and clear your head.  So take a moment to reflect, to unravel the layers and see things as they are.”
Back to the Future - Belgian Art Prize celebrating its 75th anniversary
Curated by Emmanuel Lambion in conversation with Charlotte Crevits
With the essential support of Stibbe
Generously insured by Hiscox

The rich history of the Belgian Art Prize, formerly known as Jeune Peinture Belge, has undoubtedly been a landmark of the evolution of the Belgian art scene since 1950. From the beginning, the aim was to support and promote artists established in Belgium, “without prejudice to school or trend”, under the age of 35.
In 2017, under its new identity as the Belgian Art Prize, the award underwent a rejuvenation, emphasising artistic relevance, innovative insights and the diversity of artistic practices. 
Faced with the daunting and almost impossible task of compiling a retrospective of the most significant laureates of the past 75 years, the curators chose to focus on a forward-looking perspective. Considering various balances and criteria (gender, linguistic community, discipline, aesthetic vocabulary, awards received, level of recognition or integration into the market), they preselected eight former laureates of the BAP. To each of them, the curators suggested presenting an artistic conversation with an artist who has never participated in the Belgian Art Prize but could potentially be eligible.
With: Els Dietvorst & Flor Veronica J. Maesen, Ann Veronica Janssens & Gijs Milius, Leen Voet & Klaas Op de Beeck, Sophie Whettnall & Laurence Petrone, Juan d’Oultremont & Etiennette Plantis, Sébastien Reuzé & Arnaud Eubelen, Emmanuel Van der Auwera & Haseeb Ahmed, Pieter Vermeersch & Le Chauffage.
Carton Plein
By Juan d’Oultremont in collaboration with ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles (Archives, Heritage and Special Collections & the Library of Human Sciences)

The artist Juan d'Oultremont has been collecting fragments of memory for decades. More than 10,000 carefully archived exhibition invitations create a true mapping of contemporary art in Belgium. These invitations, often ephemeral, bear witness to the graphic trends, curatorial audacity and artists of yesterday and today, and here they become the material for an archive in motion.
But this collection is not a straight compilation. It needs to be activated. For Art Brussels 2025, under the name CARTON PLEIN, it will become a collective work, an archive in the process of transformation, just waiting to be expanded!
The KickCancer Collection is back at Art Brussels – now with curator Zoë Gray (Bozar)

The KickCancer Collection returns to Art Brussels, inviting visitors to experience what "Small Art with a Big Heart" truly means. The collection will feature original, postcard-sized artworks provided by participating galleries and their talented artists. Each piece will be sold anonymously, with all proceeds supporting KickCancer’s beautiful mission: to cure every child with cancer. 
This year, there’s a new spark! The collection has its first-ever curator Zoë Gray, Director of Exhibitions at Bozar. Her take? “It will be an exciting challenge to curate a presentation of works submitted anonymously, and in a shifting show where works disappear when they are sold. I shall expect the unexpected, as Oscar Wilde recommended!” 
BeCraft - presenting Cru Atelier, Joséphine Hazard, Patrick Jadot, Louise Limontas and Annick Tapernoux

To illustrate the relevance of the utilitarian as a catalyst for emotions but also as a vector of meaning, BeCraft has called upon five artist-members from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. On furniture designed for the occasion by Cru Atelier, they set the table of trades, reflect on a reality, and remind us of the inevitable, much like the ancient still lifes. Unlike the time when it would have been appropriate to ask why so much luxury, it is now urgent to ask why so much obsolescence and lifeless creation. Bringing an added soul, focusing on the creative gesture and the nature of creation—this is precisely the role that artist-craftsmen must play.
PERFORMANCES
‘Where the Body Begins’
Performance – Curated by Luk Lambrecht
Directed by Carina Gosselé and Liesbet Hermans
In collaboration with Open Senses Lab, PXL-MAD School of Arts

This performance invites visitors to engage with art beyond the visual. Performers navigate the exhibition in a state of heightened attentiveness, gently inviting visitors into a shared sensory experience.
Language: English
Duration: 20 minutes / performance
When: Friday, April 25; Saturday, April 26; and Sunday, April 27 – each day from 2pm till 5pm
Where: Art Brussels, starting point at the entrance of Hall 5 (after registering at the fair)

Breaking Free by Lieven De Boeck
The Circus – Embracing Fluidity in Art and Identity (as featured in zine LDB+)
In the performance The Circus, these various roles converge in a vibrant spectacle, each represented by uniquely designed yet interchangeable costumes. Visitors—whether artists, curators, critics, or casual attendees—can assume any role simply by wearing the corresponding costume.
Language: English
Duration: 1 hour
When: Thursday, April 24, at 1 PM, 3 PM, and 5 PM
Where: Art Brussels (starting point to be confirmed)