Photography & travel

PIERRE ALECHINSKY – Pinceau voyageur

Pierre Alechinsky, a Belgian artist know worldwide. New-york, Paris, Valencia, Madrid, Osaka, Tokyo and now in Brussels with a solo exhibition at Villa Empain. The building itself is a gem. An elegant Art Deco building dating from 1930, designed by Swiss architect Michel Polak for Baron Louis Empain. The baron himself hardly ever lived there. The villa has had a turbulent history. It was sold, rented out and eventually bought back by the Baron, who then donated it to the Belgian government. In 1980, the villa, which was in a deplorable state, was purchased by the Boghossian Foundation. Thanks to …

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NIEUWPOORT

Newport, Nieuport. A small town at the estuarium of the Yser river at the Belgium West coast. Once the battleground during WWI where the war was settled, but today a beautiful coastal town and home of Jan Fabre’s statue ‘searching for Utopia’. Just before we left to spend the weekend, I impulsively grabbed a bunch of artificial roses. I don’t know why but i felt they would be part of something. The sky was heavy, rainy and grey. And those roses proved to be a colourful detail. The equestrian statue ‘Men’ on the breakwater is an artwork of Nina Beier. …

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FLOWERS FOR CONCRETE

Sometimes a creative moment presents itself. Walking to the bakery on a Sunday morning i suddenly realise that an old garage building in my neighbourhood is getting demolished.Nothing special planned i grab my camera gear, vase of lilies and my safety shoes. It remains, of course, a building under construction, albeit in reverse. The original garage activities were already long stopped. I only knew the building as a storage room for fruit and vegetables owned by a small entrepreneur.However, I never knew that people also lived in dingy flats with little or no comfort. Looking at the gas and electricity …

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Viroinval

After weeks of semi-lockdown you start longing to escape. If only for a weekend with the kids, nature and some culture.Brain food modus: ‘ON’Family time: ‘CHECK’Escape to nature: ‘STARTED’But before we explore the woods of Viroinval a culture stop at the ‘Musée de La Photography’ in Charleroi is planned. What did you expect from a ‘photo addict’ ? We stayed the weekend at FOREST-CUBE. An ecolodge in the middle of trees where you can breathe naturally.The cubes are nearly energy passive with straw insulation, heat pump and heat-recovery ventilation. We like!Not even 10 mins down the road in Oignies-En-Thiérache you …

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VEBEKE FOUNDATION

Photo’s are all taken at the Verbeke Foundation.12 hectares of scenic area and 20000m2 of covered exhibition space.If you enjoy nature & love art, i strongly advise you to visit this. Extract from the official flyer Our exhibition space does not aim to be an oasis. Our presentation is unfinished, in motion, unpolished, contradictory, untidy, complex, inharmonious, living and un-monumental, like the world outside the museum walls. You will find no flamboyant sensational buildings here, but rather a refreshing, unpretentious place to look at art and a subtle criticism of the art world. (Tom Ronse)

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Belgium