Generation Brussels 2023

Since 2018, Brussels Gallery Weekend and its affiliated galleries have been supporting young Brussels-based artists through the “Generation Brussels” exhibition series. Each year, a different curator organises this showcase, which aims to shine a spotlight on emerging Brussels artists who have not yet had the opportunity to exhibit in galleries.

“Generation Brussels” features a diverse group of artists, including art school students, recent graduates, aspiring artists, and those with some experience. The 2023 edition, titled “Cet obscur objet du désir” is curated by art critic and curator Sam Steverlynck. The exhibition’s name is a reference to the surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel‘s 1977 masterpiece of the same title. Buñuel’s film, a dark exploration of lust and love, was one of his more conventional works, albeit with subtle moments of disruption, alienation, and surrealistic wit.

The artworks showcased in “Generation Brussels” do not necessarily directly relate to the film’s themes, nor do they illustrate them. Instead, they share the ambiguity of the film’s title. While their visual language may be attractive, these works also possess a dark and sometimes even threatening quality. Some of the videos, sculptures, and installations may come across as repulsive but still exert a strange and compelling attraction that captivates the viewer. Even seemingly normal or familiar works harbor hidden and elusive undercurrents. As a result, the exhibition invites visitors on a surreal journey that traverses desire and repulsion, phantasms and impulses, the object and the abject (in the context of Julia Kristeva’s theory), and the familiar and the uncanny (as explored in Freudian psychoanalysis).

Selected artists: Chloé Arrouy, Aurélie Bayad, Maëlle Dufour, Bas van den Hout, Yvan Megal, Lucian Moriyama, Nina Robert.

For more information: Brussels Gallery Weekend