« When Art & Wellness meet »
Courtesy Sorry We Are Closed photo by Hugard & Vanoverschelde
At a time when wellness has never been more central to our desires and concerns, the team behind The Rooms, in collaboration with The Mix Brussels, appears to have found the right formula. The former flagship of the Royale Belge, redesigned by Lionel Jadot, was transformed for a long weekend into a sequence of dimly lit rooms and projection screens, hosting around forty galleries brought together by Sébastien Janssen (Sorry We’re Closed) and Patrick Mestdagh (Galerie Ondine and Galerie Patrick Mestdagh), founders of this new-generation fair. Alongside the exhibition, a highly exclusive wellness offering invited visitors to train both body and mind in the wellness centre, or to take a break on one of the terraces over a latte.
This decompartmentalised dispositif reinforces the very identity of The Rooms, where the hotel room becomes a liminal space: neither fully public nor entirely private. A state of tension that operates as an in-between territory where artworks circulate and their status becomes fluid, gradually dissolving.
The overall presentation is marked by a certain curatorial restraint, allowing the works to emerge in a direct relationship to human scale, while fully embracing the porosity between art, design, and the staging of everyday life.
A predominantly Belgian overview :
Sorry We Are Closed (Brussels)
A bold and successful curatorial choice by Sébastien Janssen, co-founder of The Rooms, with a solo presentation by Belgian designer Maarten De Ceulaer, who introduces a contemporary domestic fiction through a forest of hybrid mushroom-like forms. A room conceived as a “living design ecosystem.”
Between assemblage and an almost organic, evolving system, the lighting objects become mutable entities, shaped through an unexpected combination of materials and continuously shifting forms.
CLAES Gallery (Brussels)
Didier Claes, a specialist in Central African art and a historic figure of BRAFA, expressed a strong interest in the approach of The Rooms. For the fair, he conceived his room as an expert’s salon, built around works drawn from ritual, sculptural, and ceremonial traditions, unfolding within a sense of long historical time.
As his brother Alexandre Claes notes, the entirely different clientele of this fair allows for greater freedom and experimentation, with a more eclectic approach and a deliberately moderate price range.
Among the works on view are paintings by Congolese artist Bela Sara, alongside a selection of extra-European art objects. In the late 1940s, while working as a night watchman in Élisabethville in the former Belgian Congo, Bela Sara created his first paintings depicting animals and natural scenes that would later define his reputation. Working exclusively with his fingers, he developed throughout his career a highly expressive pictorial practice, whether depicting nature or the interactions between humans and animals.
Among the outstanding objects presented is a Lwena (or Luena) mask from the Congo, celebrating the beauty of the young woman, traditionally used in initiation, rites of passage, or social celebrations.
Also on view is a Bamiléké ancestral figure from Cameroon, distinguished by a particular sacrificial patina resulting from offerings received over time.
It is worth noting that the gallery is preparing an entirely new exhibition for September, Africa Legacy, in collaboration with the City of Brussels and the Congolese Cultural Centre at the Espace Vanderborght, with Didier Claes as curator. Bringing together 165 heritage works and 100 contemporary pieces, the exhibition aims to open up new imaginaries and narratives.
Aeroplastics (Brussels)
Staying faithful to his curatorial method, Jérôme Jacobs conceives a manifesto-room centred on contemporary imagery, absurdity, and the tensions of today’s visual culture.
This aesthetic of displacement and irony is immediately introduced at the entrance with Choreography on Soap by Pierrick Sorin.
With Women on the Run, Tracey Snelling explores, through highly detailed architectural models, the trajectories of women in constant motion, moving from one hotel to another to escape a situation or a past.
The Spanish artist Eugenio Merino presents Gucci-style glasses, whose lenses feature printed projections of nuclear explosions—an ironic commentary on luxury and power, operating through a logic of desacralisation.
A bronze work by Gavin Turk depicts a discarded pillow placed on the floor, part of his series of everyday street-found objects, recast in bronze and produced in editions of eight, in keeping with his established practice.
Elodie Antoine’s golden mushroom-like forms (clouds), placed on the room’s windows, introduce a dreamlike atmosphere, while framed lace works turn towards notions of intimacy.
Above the bed, a 19th-century-style salon hang presents a deliberately explosive mix, including works by Katia Bourdarel, Terry Rodgers with scenes of nudist beaches in Ramatuelle, and Carlos Aires’ banknotes.
Scène Ouverte (Paris)
Faithful to the spirit of The Rooms, Scène Ouverte departs from the traditional fair-booth model in favor of a more inhabited, staged presentation. The works occupy the room as elements of a contemporary set design, inviting visitors to experience art within a more intimate, narrative framework.
In works by Alice Vantard, Arthur Hoffner, Nicolas Riedel, Thibault Lucas, and Camille Garros, a shared economy of means emerges, alongside a common tension between sculptural presence and the fragility of images. Together, the works create an atmosphere in which the pieces do not assert themselves as autonomous objects, but rather as fragments of a more diffuse, almost domestic narrative.
Romero Paprocki (Paris/Milan)
This marks the gallery’s first participation, following its encounter at Ceramic Brussels. The presentation focuses on the emerging European scene, bringing together artists Louis Jacquot, Marion Flament, Matisse Mesnil, Pauline Guerrier, and the duo Deborah Bowmann. The works navigate the space between installation and architecture, exploring aesthetics of illusion and perception, as well as the scenography of light and the construction of perceptual environments.
Pili Collado (Brussels)
The gallerist is known for challenging conventions and stepping outside the standardized gallery format. She welcomes visitors by appointment in her home, located on Place Brugmann, embracing a continuously evolving, laboratory-like approach. The selection brings together artists whose practices explore sculpture, ceramics, and contemporary jewelry, playing on the porous boundary between functional object and autonomous artwork. Other proposals, closer to design or sculptural jewelry, shift attention toward detail, precision of gesture, and the symbolic charge of the object.
Particular attention is given to the sculptures of Valentin Abad and the ceramics of Dominique CJ Masullo.
Valentin Abad develops a sculptural practice grounded in the metamorphosis of objects and materials. His works, both restrained and enigmatic, draw on the language of metaphor to render intangible emotions visible. Informed by childhood memories and observations of everyday life, his sculptures explore the emotional and psychological mechanisms that shape human relationships.
Through his ceramics, Dominique CJ Masullo, also known as Prince Of Sun, develops a distinctive visual language that blends personal memory, Mediterranean heritage, and the poetry of archaic forms. Often infused with solar tones and references to nature, his works move between craft, design, and contemporary sculpture, giving each piece a presence that is at once familiar and enigmatic.
Lauren Van Middelem, (Knokke)
At The Rooms, the Lauren Van Middelem Gallery presents an eclectic hanging that brings together several generations of artists in dialogue. From the luminous paintings of Jan De Vliegher to sculptures by Luk Van Soom and William Sweetlove, alongside works by Kjell Robberecht and Ferre Leriche, the selection juxtaposes emerging talents with established figures from the contemporary art scene. The exhibition is punctuated by historical presences such as Pol Bury and Takis, as well as a work by Damien Hirst, offering a journey in which painting, sculpture, and material experimentation intersect.
Modesti Perdriolle (Brussels)
Modesti Perdriolle, a Paris-based gallery established in Belgium, has built since its inception a strong identity around contemporary and vernacular Indian artists and scenes. For The Rooms, the focus shifts toward cultural hybridizations, bringing together the Italian glass artist Antonio Da Ros and the Belgian illustrator Patrick Regout.
An inventor and researcher, Da Ros pushes glass beyond its limits, notably through the “sommerso” (submerged) technique developed at Cenedese, which creates striking optical depth effects. He is best known for his iconic vases—Sassi, Momento, and Contrappunto—the latter awarded at the 1960 Venice Biennale.
Patrick Regout stands out through a series of seed-sowing tools he develops himself, which then serve as the starting point for his graphite drawings. Like waves or ripples, these marks underscore the compulsive, almost rhythmic nature of his practice.
Spazio Nobile (Brussels)
The Brussels-based gallery presents an experimental “chamber-essay” shaped by an aesthetic of materiality and contemporary craft, in line with its curatorial approach. The selected artists deliberately blur categorical boundaries: Benoît Maire, whose practice is rooted in a form of materialized philosophy; Jungnelius / Tempelhaug, for whom sculpture functions as a language; and Pao Hui Kao, who develops a minimal and fragile architectural vocabulary using paper.
Zabulum (Brussels)
The Belgian gallery, with a focus on design and modernist heritage, presents Michele de Lucchi, a central figure in Italian design, co-founder of the Memphis Milano movement, and former architect at Olivetti during a key period of his career.
His “Vase within the Vase” series plays on transparency and layering effects in a true mise en abyme. Here, emptiness itself becomes a material in its own right.
To be completed with my interviews with :
Sophie Roose, Galerie Christophe Gaillard (link)
Virginie Devillez « Surrealism remixed by Charlotte Beaudry » (link)
Practical Information :
Public Days 5 – 7 June
Fri & Sat from 2 pm – 8 pm
Sun from 2 pm – 6 pm
Mix
Bd du Souverain 25
1170 Bruxelles
